tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216667862024-03-14T11:57:46.801-04:00Church of BaseballCommentary on baseball and society, baseball and philosophy, baseball and history, and baseball and baseball.Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.comBlogger1488125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-66920923180557362252023-12-27T14:40:00.002-05:002023-12-27T14:40:17.831-05:00What it was like to go to a baseball game<p> </p><p><i>Written in May 2021</i><br /></p><p>The radar was green, yellow, and
red across the eastern half of the US. I opened the radar app about
every half hour throughout the day and watched as those color swirls
advanced towards my city, the one with the baseball game scheduled to
start at 7pm. I was pre-devastated. What had once been something of a
ritual had been stolen from me - stolen from all of us. For the first
time since October 2019, I had tickets to the one church that mattered
to me, the Church of Baseball. But the rains came, as if the oceans of
tears that have been by shed by the globe over the last year had broken a
levee and were flooding everything.</p><p>Then, a rainbow. By 6:30, the
rain had stopped completely. By 7pm, those two beautiful words "Play
Ball!" were shouted to commence the ceremonial rite we know as Baseball.</p><p>I
had to ask the bus driver if it were the right bus to the ballpark;
what had been routine had become a disestablished novelty. He kind of
laughed in recognition of our shared trauma.</p><p>When I was a kid
growing up at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, there were three things I
experienced that were akin to Christmas Eve. The first was stepping on
the black squishy stuff (that actually was there to help concrete
expansion during the blistering summer months.) The second was walking
up the concrete ramps to what seemed like Heaven. The third was magic,
that moment when you walked from the concourse through a kind of tunnel
to get to your seats and you saw the field for the first time that day.
The stadium is long gone now, but that green field beneath the ring of
rainbow colored seats is embedded on my heart.</p><p>There have been
some moments since then when baseball has made me feel that kind of
magic. The first time I saw the field at Wrigley and Fenway. The World
Series game I saw in San Francisco. Opening Day 2005 when baseball
returned to our nation's capital after a three decade absence. Max's 20K
game. And May 4, 2021.</p><p>I've probably done it 150 times before,
walked through those centerfield gates to the glory of the baseball
field at Nats Park. It's may be the best entrance gate in baseball. But
the sight had never brought me to tears before Tuesday. And to be
honest, if I hadn't needed the restroom immediately, I may have bawled
like a newborn. LOL</p><p>It was a rebirth of sorts.</p><p>I sat just of
the right of the foul pole in rightfield. I wore my 2019 World Series
shirt with the shark holding the trophy. I drank shitty domestic beer
and ate the best tasting hotdog I ever had because it tasted like
liberation. I looked at every person with unconditional love and at
everything in the stadium with a sense of awe. The World Series
Champions banner. The four flag poles above the scoreboard that now have
four pennants instead of three and an empty. The lightning rods atop
the stadium. The yellow mustard colored foul pole. The neon clad vendors
selling their intoxication libations. Every thing (except that stupid
Natitude! sign - it is still stupid) brought me joy.</p><p>The ballpark
was filled to legal capacity with massive spacing between all of us,
and masks were enforced. Being DC, where well-educated people respect
expertise, no one threw the kind of fit you see in other places when
told to put their masks on. I waited until two weeks after my second
vaccine to go to a game, which I believe should be a requirement. </p><p>This
pandemic has changed me, because it has shown me how selfish and
cowardly half of America is, that so many people are unwilling to lift a
finger for their country and protect their fellow Americans. And for
what? Freedom? You aren't free if you can't walk down the street without
a controllable pandemic putting you and your loved ones at risk of
death. If you're not willing to protect them, it isn't love. The
opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference.</p>I hope the next
magical baseball game is not a meaningless game in May played by a bad
team, but something truly special for baseball reasons rather than
societal ones. I fear we are facing dark times ahead, so I will try to
enjoy the time we have while there is still some stability left in the
country.Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-89934168408822785502023-06-14T15:35:00.001-04:002023-06-14T18:26:45.881-04:00What Was Stolen from UsOne perfect day forty-five years ago - at least I assume it was perfect because it was San Diego - a young mother from Dayton, Ohio took her one year old daughter to a baseball game. She dressed the child in the visiting team's gear, passing on team fandom to a fifth generation.<div><br></div><div>The team was nearing the end of its most successful decade in its long history - indeed, in the history of baseball in its entirety - with one of the greatest lineups ever assembled largely intact. The girl was too young to appreciate them, of course, and she'd be too young to feel the sting when the team was decimated by the institution of free agency a couple of years later. She was even too young to remember the Hall of Fame catcher roaming the outfield on bum knees when she attended her first game in a space age stadium on the banks of a muddy river on the other side of the continent.</div><div><br></div><div>Over the years, that fandom became part of her identity. Christmases and birthdays saw team gear unwrapped with glee. Attending games was a special treat for the girl, her two sisters, and her single mother trying to make ends meet. The team gave tickets to straight A students in the region, which became an annual tradition. A family friend would occassionally give his coveted blue seats to them. If they were lucky, they'd get to three games in a season. One particularly special year, she managed to go to one game a month.</div><div><br></div><div>That stadium by the river was a playground. The thrill of seeing it rise from the concrete and asphalt as their car rounded the highway bend remains in memories four decades later. So, too, does the feel of the black squishy stuff one walked on to get to the gates. And that first view of the verdant field as you walked from the concourse to the rainbow colored seats? Was it Heaven? No, it was Ohio. But it damn well could have been the Pearly Gates.</div><div><br></div><div>Then came the best possible outcome, the wish of every human being who has ever felt a passion for baseball. Her team won the World Series. They had been in first place the entire season, but they hadn't been expected to claim the trophy. She was in 8th grade.</div><div><br></div><div>Who could have expected that thirty-two years would pass with barely a sniff of a pennant? Who could have expected that baseball would change so much that rich guys who owned teams would lose on purpose, that indeed, it became ingrained in the culture, and that her own beloved team, the oldest in the game, would be one of those losers? Who would have thought that the racist old lady with the Nazi gear would be the last owner who cared to win?</div><div><br></div><div>Who could have expected that a fruit heir's son, a spoiled rich kid with no concept of what it means to work for a living, would berate the fans on the holiest day of the year - Opening Day in Cincinnati - and do it again in a luncheon for the biggest diehards of all? </div><div><br></div><div>In the time since their last League Championship Series appearance, fans have been told time and time again to have patience, that rebuilding would finally return a trophy to the Queen City. Only once did they assemble a roster that could have gone somewhere, but the Fruit Heir refused to pay to fill the glaring holes, and that window shut after two failed division series and a wild card loss. A DECADE later, the wealthhoarding owner once again refused to fill the holes on a decent roster with a very good pitching staff, crying poverty and opting for another rebuild.</div><div><br></div><div>The team is exciting now. Call me skeptical. Maybe they'll contend this year, and they may next, but what always happens is the fruit guy cries poverty when it doesn't work out and it comes time to pay the young guys, so they're traded for prospects and the cycle starts all over again. The talking heads seem to think the Reds are legit contenders this year, because the central divisions of both leagues are full of greedy owners who pretend that because they live in the Midwest, they have a right to claim poverty. Only three teams are over .500 out of ten, and the Reds aren't one of them.</div><div><br></div><div>None of those owners is worse than the silver spoon born wealthhoarder in Oakland. The youngest son of the founders of GAP, this recluse isn't content with the $2.2 billion he's worth. No, he insists on a massive redistribution of wealth from the common folk to him in the form of a $380 million dollar taxpayer funded stadium. Oakland wouldn't give it to him, so he threw a richy fit and is moving the team to Sin City. That's $380 million that doesn't go to roads, police departments, libraries, social services, or any of the other things that are necessary in a modern society.</div><div><br></div><div>What Oakland fans did last night was nothing short of astounding, staging a "reverse boycott" and showing up in droves to cheer on their team. They've been blamed for not showing up. But why should they? Trust fund babies who never had to work for their wealth can't grasp that most people have to make choices in what they buy, and anyone with a modecum of sense doesn't waste money on things that make them feel bad. The owners think they are entitled to own a Major League Baseball team because that is what wealthhoarders do - they hoard wealth - and they think those baseball teams are theirs to destroy.</div><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_230614_174538_860.sdocx--><div><br></div><div>But sports teams are public institutions. Baseball is so hallowed in this country that it has a special trust exemption granted by Congress. <u>Was</u> so hallowed. Now that greed has become the way of life in this country, nothing but money seems to be hallowed.</div><div><br></div><div>I'm excited about the Reds again, but it will never be the same. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Those fruit family assholes have stolen that from me. The wealthhoarders have stolen it from all of us. They are thieves.</span></div><div><br></div><div>But that is what America (and the world) has become. You see it in the record profits made by food and gas companies as corporate execs took advantage of a pandemic. You see it in the cost of housing which has exploded the homeless population and put another significant percentage of the population on the brink of it. You see it in the go fund me campaigns begging for donations to have life-saving medical procedures. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">You see it in the commercial train accidents, trucks blowing up highways, the neo-slavery in our factories. You see it in the wildfires, the devastating storms, and the flooding caused by corporate greed. The </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">economy isn't bad. The wealthhoarders and the politicians who protect them are.</span></div><div><br></div><div>The top 1% of Americans took $50 TRILLION from the bottom 90% during the pandemic. That is the single greatest redistribution of wealth in history. It is THEFT. So is stealing a public institution from a city.</div><div><br></div><div>Until Americans stand up against the wealthy and take back what is rightfully ours, they will continue to steal from us. That's gonna take more than showing up to a baseball game in protest. </div><div><br></div><div>But it was one heckuva start.</div>Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-8722133613016121062022-06-26T17:15:00.001-04:002022-06-26T17:15:53.796-04:00A Summer without BaseballThe sun is still high<div>In late afternoon sky</div><div>It's hot, but it's not</div><div>A breeze in late June.</div><div>The parade has long passed</div><div>For our game on the grass</div><div>The crack of the bat</div><div>I can't hear it.</div><div>Phil's shadow I saw</div><div>On our Holy Day's lawn</div><div>I thought, let's not</div><div>So I didn't.</div><div>Now summer's begun</div><div>And nobody's won</div><div>It's greed, not need</div><div>But I miss it.</div>Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-44381397333324328082021-09-23T21:53:00.000-04:002022-05-05T17:38:14.105-04:00Losing Is TheftI pulled a Capitals shirt over my head today, an Ovechkin shirsey I bought eight or nine years ago one warm May day when the sun was shining as brightly as the Caps playoff chances. I was meeting up at Lou's City Bar to watch a Caps playoff game after work and needed something appropriate for the day. The red has since faded somewhat, and the number 8 under the name of the greatest goal scorer in hockey history has cracked, but the shirt represents a team that has been to the playoffs all but once in the last fourteen seasons, winning the division in ten of those years and one glorious championship.<div><br></div><div>This is not a post about hockey. It's about fandom and winning and ownership and how losing is theft.</div><div><br></div><div>The Capitals had a good run in the late 90s/early 00s, going to the Stanley Cup final in 1998 when I was a junior in college in SW Ohio and knew little about the NHL. Ted Leonisis took over as owner in 1999 and went to the playoffs three times before a three season period of not qualifying.</div><div><br></div><div>Then he said enough.</div><div><br></div><div>He scored big in drafting Alexander Ovechkin #1, and he knew this was a player to build a franchise around. He rebranded the team, going back to the red, white, and blue and frankly awesome logo of earlier years. He signed Team USA hero and All American Boy T.J. Oshie and surrounded Ovi with good or great players, concocting creative (and sometimes criticized) ways to dance with the NHL salary cap. He filled needs when they became apparent. This was an owner who wanted to win.</div><div><br></div><div>Ted Leonsis is why I know what winning feels like.</div><div><br></div><div>Oh sure, it helps to have the greatest goal scorer of all time on your team, but you have to have a front office willing to assemble a supporting cast. The Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, est. 1869, having been blessed with one of the greatest hitters of all-time, does not have such a front office to support him. Joseph Daniel Votto, winner of the 2010 MVP, owner of a career slash line of .302/.417/.520, top ten all-time 1B in WAR, 328 career homers (including 33 in his age 37 season) is the kind of player you're supposed to build a franchise around. When I think back over the last decade and try to recall his teammates, I often struggle to put names to positions because their achievements have been so forgettable, or they were underperforming fan favorites like Scooter Gennett. I think back to the times I was actually excited about signings - getting Aroldis Chapman was akin to a coup, for example. So, too, was hiring Kyle Boddy, whose frustration with Reds ownership led to his resignation last week. Castellanos was a great signing but we all knew it was two years and no more, because El Cheapo remains at the helm. Castellanos is the exact kind of supporting cast one needs to win. But a winning baseball team needs not a handful of capable guys, but more than 25 players because of inevitable injuries. Herein lies the problem.</div><div><br></div><div>The Reds have a lot of great players, many of them #1 draft picks or top prospects, but when you replace All Star starter Jesse Winker with Aristides Aquino, and any good shortstop with Kyle Farmer, you're basically making yourself the Pirates. No one could have predicted Suarez falling off the proverbial cliff, but here's where a capable front office steps in. If one of your key guys is not performing, you go out and get a replacement. That's what Ted Leonsis has done. He's filled holes with the likes of Shattenkirk or Hagelin or any number of quality players that are available at the time the need arises. They haven't always worked out, but that's sports.</div><div><br></div><div>Contrast that with the Reds, who had glaring bullpen holes before the season began that were never addressed. Ole Bobo was content to keep running out the same failing arms as the division waa slipping away, then let the trade deadline pass with negligible upgrades. When injuries piled up, he was fine with running out players who have no business on an MLB roster in a pennant race.</div><div><br></div><div>It's been 31 years since the Reds won a World Series. THIRTY-ONE YEARS. Even Bob was young then. I remember when we passed the twenty year mark and I thought it'd be embarassing if we reached thirty years. That was back when the future was bright. It seems like a lifetime ago.</div><div><br></div><div>In recent years, I've been able to watch the Washington Nationas win baseball games and a World Series, a team whose ballpark I can walk to. This city, who lost one baseball team to racism and another to capitalism, a city blamed for the political decisions made by people you send from your states, a city with no congressional representation, deserved that World Series more than any other city out there. I went to a division series game and my first NLCS game that year. The city was electric; it was so much fun.</div><div><br></div><div>But it wasn't the Reds.</div><div><br></div><div>Nearly a month ago, the Reds were in control of a wild card spot, but I stopped watching. They had begun their freefall, and I no longer had the patience for it. Me, a fifth generation Reds fan who saw her first game at age 1, me who used to plan gatherings of Reds fans in DC to watch or attend games, who watched nearly every Reds game since getting an MLB.TV subscription in 2004, who scrambled to listen to Homer Bailey's MLB debut on a scratchy transistor radio from my DC porch when the power went out, who saw Cueto and Bruce's MLB debuts in Cincinnati and who once melted my car battery to see Votto and Bruce play in Richmond.</div><div><br></div><div>I used to love the lore of the past, the mythological status of Redlegs greats, the stories of the Big Red Machine and fantasies of a World Series of the '76 Reds vs the '27 Yankees. Once I did a GABp tour and nearly annoyed the tourguide because I knew all the answers to his Reds history questions. I even celebrated Obama's 2008 victory at Reds historian Greg Rhodes's house. And I bought 2019 Opening Day tickets because I wanted to be a part of the 150th anniversary season.</div><div><br></div><div>But Reds past successes have become a tired cliché. Those victories have long passed, and clinging to the glories of yesteryear aren't enough anymore. Joe is dead. Pete is a disgrace. Johnny's record is broken. Our team history matters, but it belongs to museums, not marketing.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob cries poverty because he didn't make an additional $80 million in profits last year. No matter how much the wealthhoard<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">ers try to own them, the truth is that baseball teams belong to those who give their souls to them, and perennial losing is theft. While it is inexplicable that we devote such vast quantities of spiritual energy to a game, the heart wants what it wants. This is the essence of being. Our fandom unites us in ways that border on mysticism. Most of us understand what it means to feel "electricity" in the air when we're at a game, and I'm sure if neuroscientists monitored our brains during these moments, they'd find endorphin levels that mirror drug use or prayer. We may even meet the qualification for addiction.</span></div><div><br></div><div>I guess it's time for rehab.</div><div><br></div><div>You see, I have learned what winning is supposed to be, and I learned it from a sport I wasn't born into. I should have put a Reds shirt on this morning, excited for October baseball. Instead, I gleefully don the name of a Russian on my back, ready for this weekend's first pre-season hockey game.</div><div><br></div><div>If you've lost me, Bob, you've also lost a heckuva lot more diehards who quit in silence.</div><div><br></div><div>I know people say, oh, you'll be back next March. But you know what? I never watched or listened to a single Spring Training game this past March, and I never felt less enthusiasm for Opening Day. I can't imagine getting excited for another bad season next year.</div><div><br></div><div>The heart wants what it wants. And mine doesn't want this.</div>Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-8742693916732571682018-05-14T18:20:00.002-04:002018-05-14T18:20:39.595-04:00Major League Fail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
About two weeks ago, MLB Advanced Media made an update to its At Bat app. In an instant thousands of people with Android devices lost the ability to listen to or watch baseball games on their phones.<br />
<br />
We paid for this, of course. And now we are not able to use the product that we paid for. It worked fine in April. I used it nearly every day to listen to ballgames while gardening or to watch when I was not home. Now that's all gone.<br />
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Customer "service" is no use. They've had hundreds of calls but they won't do anything about it. I sent an email to customer "service" at first. It took a week for them to respond with this generic nothingness:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-PSAQafy3Q54oTqt3Hiau5MKDIJGl9xQ2qWrRdIScxgGY6B9fDBNP0BZVpzjoxAcJq6Kfwefj56Jg0b2NpMZSXs9VL3x-EXi80MP81BM7_nuBbVKq9qCQv3UZF5an60-EZEI/s1600/IMG_-93jv5e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1440" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-PSAQafy3Q54oTqt3Hiau5MKDIJGl9xQ2qWrRdIScxgGY6B9fDBNP0BZVpzjoxAcJq6Kfwefj56Jg0b2NpMZSXs9VL3x-EXi80MP81BM7_nuBbVKq9qCQv3UZF5an60-EZEI/s320/IMG_-93jv5e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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There's no apology, no explanation that this is a widespread problem. I know it is from the dozens of people who have said they had the same problem on Twitter. Here are a few:<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Same problem with no response. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Frustrating?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Frustrating</a></p>— ⚾️Dodgers All Day Every Day ⚾️ (@steevo33) <a href="https://twitter.com/steevo33/status/994679749485051904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I have sent multiple complaints. No response...</p>— Karen Engle (@boxorama11) <a href="https://twitter.com/boxorama11/status/994026155257810947?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">and mine is now broken. It must have added another update.</p>— Hingle McCringleberry (@orioleslifer) <a href="https://twitter.com/orioleslifer/status/994024077017919488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I just asked for a refund.<br>They DM'ed me trying to "once again" fix the problem.<br>I just kept responding "No. I want a refund".<br>So I guess I am getting one.</p>— Harry Yeprem Jr. (@HarryFromCBus) <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryFromCBus/status/994023315105869826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://t.co/clWpAC3jJJ">https://t.co/clWpAC3jJJ</a> app stopped working on my phone this weekend as well.</p>— RePeTe (@Cincypiano) <a href="https://twitter.com/Cincypiano/status/993522902782873600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's not working for me either. <a href="https://twitter.com/mlbatbat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mlbatbat</a></p>— Ashley Davis (@AshleyDavis32) <a href="https://twitter.com/AshleyDavis32/status/993228511614730243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
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You get the picture.
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When I finally broke down and called after a week, the support guy didn't seem to care. He transferred me to technical support. That guy didn't care, either. He told me they've had many calls about it but he didn't care. He just assigned a ticket number. <br />
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This is what happens when I log in through my settings. (I have cleared credentials multiple times and re-logged in. Each time it says I am good to go.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiEiaFflmMmuNOK2QuUN2QIzcmEgq7NSWeMuwbs5LFb_USxYCcfOxp3fV7r0NyGAywMH2G8ul0UnrHZWssHcM5gdjuGpBDYphLeQBfWWSu92dQ3X6g7LR_WqIiKMPMEB_8Gaeq/s1600/Screenshot_20180514-171208%25281%2529+whiteout.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiEiaFflmMmuNOK2QuUN2QIzcmEgq7NSWeMuwbs5LFb_USxYCcfOxp3fV7r0NyGAywMH2G8ul0UnrHZWssHcM5gdjuGpBDYphLeQBfWWSu92dQ3X6g7LR_WqIiKMPMEB_8Gaeq/s400/Screenshot_20180514-171208%25281%2529+whiteout.png" width="225" /></a></div>
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But when I try to listen to a game, I get this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWRk7ZzNpvcsxWW83syByKpZKmQr1gZ8_9cHWK9klrcvina8sOdSVS32EiVEC2T_azICLT4y7Ai6CR1MtGLq3dFJJ_sbJzEd_iKt3OlAiDqf9udMfCu7b61ZHpPOFndxmEK4Xf/s1600/Screenshot_20180514-171225.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWRk7ZzNpvcsxWW83syByKpZKmQr1gZ8_9cHWK9klrcvina8sOdSVS32EiVEC2T_azICLT4y7Ai6CR1MtGLq3dFJJ_sbJzEd_iKt3OlAiDqf9udMfCu7b61ZHpPOFndxmEK4Xf/s400/Screenshot_20180514-171225.png" width="225" /></a></div>
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And when I try to watch a game, I get this:<br />
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<br />
Now, I worked in a place where we released an app update that was broken, and you know what we did? We pulled it from the Playstore and put up the old version until we fixed the new one. It took one day.<br />
<br />
It's been two weeks and MLBAM has not only not fixed it, but they haven't apologized, haven't offered a refund, and haven't given any indication that they are going to fix it at all. IT'S BEEN TWO WEEKS.<br />
<br />
I paid for an MLB.com subscription, as I have for a dozen years or so
now. At Bat is part of that subscription. It does not work anymore. You
make it work FOR ME. It's not the other way around. I'm not supposed to go get a phone that fits your product. I'm not buying a freaking iPhone. I so hate
corporate America. There is literally nothing we can do. I will file a complaint to Consumer Affairs or whatever, but nothing will come of that. We are powerless against big corporations that don't give a shit about anything but profit. Screw the customer. They got their money from me already, why should they care about me being happy with the product I bought?<br />
<br /></div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-38384891129114677742018-03-16T17:31:00.001-04:002018-03-16T17:31:32.583-04:00My Reds Preview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let's see if I can do this before my attention span wanders. Writing a blog post on spring or something. Blah blah insert cliche here blah blah poetry of baseball blah blah time of rebirth blah blah flowers and stuff blah countdown to Opening Day blah blah blah blah.<br />
<br />
I think I ruined my own enthusiasm with an overuse of spring passion in the past. I've run out of things to write. Or read, for that matter. So much baseball writing has become statistics-based or arm chair analysis and I find so much of it boring and cliche. I have such a diminished attention span these days I can't focus on that kind of tripe. I don't read blogs anymore unless there's a link on Twitter. I love baseball history and history in general and often relied on baseball memories for content when I was writing on this blog. Writing is hard for me these days and I can't figure out why. It's not just a lack of focus, which is a big issue, but a struggle to find words and write well in general. It's like I just lost the language skill. Maybe it's a lack of practice (yes, writing takes practice like any sport or musical instrument) that was brought about by the inability to focus. I don't know if the attention span thing a result of social media or the fact that I started seeing Chris and now never have the right environment to write in. Maybe it's stress or brain damage or a tumor or depression or straight up apathy.<br />
<br />
I'm trying to write a guide to Opening Day in Cincinnati for Nationals fans but I am realizing how much I don't know about the new Cincinnati since I am never there more than once a year and sometimes none at all. Still, I could do a history and some tips and stuff, and maybe give Reds fans some info about baseball here in Washington, too. I'm mad as hell that MLB and Findlay Market have ruined 99 years of tradition by scheduling Opening Day on a Thursday and not holding the parade on Opening Day - a baseball history-lacking fanbase like the Nationals should be treated to the full spectacle that makes Opening Day in Cincinnati a holiday. I don't care that it's Easter weekend. You could have started the parade at another location AND kept the market open. I feel like you have stolen this from us. If I had lived in Cincinnati, I would have organized a protest of sorts. Fans have failed us, too. <br />
<br />
As far as the Reds go, I'm not sure what to think. I am tired of going into every season not knowing if the starting rotation will get outs. I am tired of going into every season thinking it will most likely be a 90 loss season. Management blew it in the early part of this decade by not going all in when they had a chance (Ryan Ludwick in LF? Really?) and the rotation was one of the best in baseball. Three years (four?) of dumpster fires has really put a damper on enthusiasm. We can get excited about Castillo but the rest are question marks, except for Bailey, whose inconsistency is consistent. I don't want to sit through a couple of more seasons of crap before Greene is in the rotation. Sure, Mahle, Romero, and Garrett are promising, but promises in baseball are broken more often than not. (Evidence A: Bailey.) If I remember correctly, Mahle wasn't even considered a prospect until last year. In addition, I don't think the team should count on Finnegan or DeSclafani given their constant injuries. I think hiring John Farrell as a pitching scout shows 1. a commitment to find better pitching and 2. a lack of confidence in the pitching they have. Which gives me no confidence in the immediate term.<br />
<br />
The offense is pretty fun but you can win games when you're scoring six and they're scoring seven. <br />
<br />
I want to feel excited again, the way I felt in 2010 until the dismantling of the team after the 2013 season. Even in 2009, you could feel change was in the air. I remember the opening line of a post on Minor League Ball by John Sickels about the Reds farm system in 2007:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Good Lord.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
The <a href="https://www.minorleagueball.com/2007/12/4/17400/1952" target="_blank">rest of the post</a> explains:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This system is loaded. You have the top quartet of
Bruce/Cueto/Votto/Bailey, but even beyond them there is a good
combination of performance guys and projection guys. My initial run
through came up with 49 names worth writing about. I have narrowed that
down to 39, which is the most I can put into the book. Even that, some
of the guys I cut I wish I could put in.<br />
<br />
Take heart, Reds fans. You have a lot to look forward to.</blockquote>
<br />
I remember the feeling with depressing nostalgia given that Bruce and Cueto are gone, Bailey never lived up to expectations, and we never got past the NLDS. At least we still have Votto. I wouldn't trade him for any player in baseball, but I hate that we are wasting his prime years, some of the greatest seasons in the history of the game. Let's not forget that farm system also included Frazier, Mesoraco, and a <a href="https://www.minorleagueball.com/2007/12/7/16485/6608" target="_blank">host of other players</a><span id="goog_839847857"></span><span id="goog_839847858"></span> who went to be major leaguers. Sickels says <a href="https://www.minorleagueball.com/2018/1/18/16906222/cincinnati-reds-top-20-prospects-for-2018" target="_blank">today's farm system</a> is good and underrated. I hope he's right.<br />
<br />
I'd like to be surprised. I have no expectations. I'd rather cling to those fantasies of hope in August when you logically know your team is out but you still root like hell for fate to make everything go your way than be out of it in April. I think I'd settle for those August fantasies at this point. At least that's progress.<br />
<br />
Sometimes being a sports fan is pure nihilism.<br />
<br />
As the internet saying goes, "Eat Arby's."</div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-6330462125940674592017-11-13T15:12:00.001-05:002017-11-13T15:12:02.400-05:00Hats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What is a life?<br />
<br />
It is a book consisting of chapters, each ending with some sort of emotion, each beginning with a sense of uncertainty about what comes next.<br />
<br />
It is the people that come into it, some staying if you are lucky or fated to have them remain.<br />
<br />
It is the many hats you wear, sometimes quite literally, as in the case of Carlos Beltran.<br />
<br />
It is the body you are born with, the one that is always changing, the one that aches and ails and ages no matter what you do to stop it, the one that ends and disappears.<br />
<br />
Imagine rising to the top of your field, one of the greatest to ever do what you do, having to fight off decline until you can no longer fight. At some point, a life ceases to be about beginnings and becomes about endings. Memories are mere attempts to relive what has already ended. But we are blessed to have them.<br />
<br />
Imagine a kid in Puerto Rico hitting bottlecaps with a stick, a life not much more than dreams of future greatness. Imagine the joy of a new beginning, a lucid dream, the start of a new chapter with a brand new Major League uniform and a life defined by what it could be. Imagine standing before tens of thousands of people, bat in hand, ready for your first chance to star in that dream.<br />
<br />
The hits came, the homers, the stolen bases, the All Star games, the changing uniforms and failed postseasons and the fading star, and then, that one glorious feeling, the purpose of all of this, a World Series Championship, all subchapters in a life.<br />
<br />
What is a life?<br />
<br />
It is all of those joys and those sorrows and this one, the end of another chapter, a long, prosperous one. It is all the people, the teammates and the fans with all the different hats, and me, too, one who had the good fortune to watch the entirety of a Hall of Fame career, the one who for some reason at this very moment in this life finds herself overcome by emotion in coming to the end of the chapter of a life not mine, if only because it is not a part of <i>a</i> life, but of all life.<br />
<br />
Next chapter: Cooperstown. But what hat will he wear?</div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-38121150094187768742017-10-10T11:59:00.000-04:002017-10-10T15:31:35.427-04:00Fed up<p dir="ltr">The Nationals - and Dusty Baker - are on the verge of another failed post season, and I don't even want to watch the game tonight.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I don't want to watch the same failed lineup make out upon out. I don't want to watch the same failed relievers be put into situations they shouldn't be in. I don't want to watch Dusty Baker mismanage another team out of the postseason.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Moreover, I don't want to watch the same fans and media make excuses and defend the manager and players as if they can do no wrong. I wonder if some of these people have ever watched a non-Nationals baseball game. I know some of them aren't watching the rest of the postseason games.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It wasn't a bloop that lost the game yesterday. It was putting Solis in the situation to give up the bloop. It was starting a .226 hitter over a .315 hitter in the outfield. It was failing to drop a clueless Trea Turner down in the order and bat one of the few successful hitters, Michael A. Taylor, at leadoff.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It was constructing the exact lineup three games in a row, one that, save for one glorious inning, has produced a single run in the entire series.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And now they turn their hopes to a mediocre Tanner Roark, who can be hit or miss, and when he misses, he misses badly.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is a five game series played over the course of a week. The games are not like the regular season. There is no tomorrow. There is no "we'll get 'em next time." There is no miraculous recovery from a slump...that can take weeks. The World Series champs will be crowned by then. There is only changing things up, being creative, and approaching the games with a sense of urgency. And we get none of that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I watch these other managers do extraordinary things like pitching Chris Sale on three days rest when he is supposed to start the next game and struggle to recall any postseason decision by Dusty that was beneficial to the outcome of a game or series.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I lived in California and followed the Giants in 2002. I walked out of Pac Bell Park after World Series Game 5 thinking there was no way the Giants could lose. With a 5-0 lead and eight outs to go to a World Series championship the next game, Dusty made the controversial decision to pull Russ Ortiz and hand control to his bullpen. They lost that game and the next and the World Series. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I didn't follow the Cubs in 2003, but we all know about Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, and Dusty's propensity to leave Wood in too long cost the team a trip to the World Series, that and pitching to Alex Gonzalez with the pitcher on deck.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But the Reds. I watch the current postseason littered with former players from a dismantled team, a team that was good enough to win it all, just as this Nationals team is, and I feel the despair all over again. I watch them scattered across baseball fields other than the one in Cincinnati and I see the same kind of decisions being made here in Washington with the same kind of results, like batting Shin-Soo Choo leadoff against Francisco Liriano in the 2013 Wild Card game despite Choo's .215 average against lefthanders. Or keeping Cueto in with a 2-0 deficit, then 3-0, then when a fourth run scored putting in Hoover and Ondrusek instead of the best pitcher, Chapman, leading to two more runs. It was one of most grossly mismanaged postseason games in memory. Chapman was never used at all.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And he wasn't used for the tenth inning in Game 3 of the 2012 NLDS after a scoreless 15 pitch ninth. No, instead Dusty put in Jonathan Broxton, who promptly gave up three runs to lose the game. And he allowed Mat Latos to continue to pitch as he gave up six runs in the fifth inning of Game 5 of that series, as if there were going to be a game the next day. No, instead, the Reds went home after having a two games to none lead and the Giants went on to win the World Series.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That 2012 division series was a textbook case on how not to manage in the postseason.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is a guy who famously said baserunners who got on by walks are "clogging up the bases." His disdain for on base percentage is well-known and caused conflict with his GM and with his OBP star Joey Votto. During his five years with the Reds, batters in the second spot in the order slashed .228/.281/.350. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Dusty Baker is one of the nicest, classiest people in baseball and probably on Earth. But class doesn't win championships. I am fed up with the bad decisions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I am fed up with being disappointed.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So I don't want to watch tonight. I don't want to watch, but I will, because I am a fan of the great game of baseball, even if it is not a fan of me.</p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-47038937661631501762017-04-18T17:09:00.001-04:002017-04-18T17:10:01.123-04:00What do you do when you're sick of the internet?Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-15306253873464492072017-01-18T10:49:00.000-05:002017-01-18T11:04:56.180-05:00Hall of Blame<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Hall of Fame has become a disgrace.<br />
<br />
But it's an interesting case study in the creation of historical records.<br />
<br />
Herodotus is widely credited with writing the first history book when he wrote about the wars between the Greeks and the Persians in <i>The Histories</i>, but it was Thucydides who wrote the first account of history in which an author attempted to verify facts. His <i>History of the Peloponnesian War</i> is the best account we have of Greece destroying itself (it's actually a pretty good read, too.) He described incessant warfare, greed and the concept of profits over people, people thinking they can interpret religion any way they want, yada yada...same shit that's happening in America as we see our nation fall.<br />
<br />
The fact is, before Herodotus and Thucydides, no one ever thought of writing down what happened in their world, and when the two historians did write something down, there was nothing before them to show them how to write it. These were thoughts that had never been thought before, ideas never ideated, processes never processed.<br />
<br />
For some people, the concept of this is too much for them - they can't imagine what it was like when it didn't occur to people to write things down. Even though it did occur to Thucydides, he still wrote as too many do today, without thoroughly reading and citing other documents, which is the foundation of all modern historical writing. He did quote a few books, and he interviewed people, which were novel ideas at the time, but although he was aware of the value of documentary evidence, he did not take full advantage of it. We are left with having to rely on what he wrote, with all his personal biases; therefore, we cannot take his text and his history as gospel.<br />
<br />
When hotel owner Stephen Carlton Clark conceived the baseball Hall of Fame, the country was still reeling from the Great Depression, and Prohibition had wiped out the hops industry, devastating the local economy (who cares who you hurt as long as you're moral, amirite?) The civil-war-hero-Abner-Doubleday-invented-baseball-in-Cooperstown propaganda was essential to the cause (you know, the story Albert Spalding made up so the Spalding Company could sell baseball equipment?), and the baseball Hall of Fame was born. Clark and company decided to give the Baseball Writers Association of America the vote, because back then, baseball writers were scholars of a sort. You had to know <i>how to write</i> to be employed as a baseball writer, rather than simply purchasing a journalism (or worse, a communications) degree.<br />
<br />
A free and fair press is essential to a stable democracy. You absolutely cannot be a stable country if you are oppressing journalists. This is not debatable. We are not living in the era of Thucydides. We have the researched and true historical records to back it up. We have seen oppression. We have seen what the most heinous of rulers have done to journalists who have done nothing but report the truth. Journalists who report the news should be held with a degree of reverence. I should mention that I hold journalists in the highest regard, as I have worked with journos from across the globe who are risking their lives to report the news. (I supported <a href="https://cpj.org/" target="_blank">CPJ</a> before Meryl Streep made it cool.) Journalist is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.<br />
<br />
That being said, a sportswriter is not part of this class. Sports are entertainment. They don't matter. <br />
<br />
Well, that's not true, either. Writing is part of the humanities, of humanity. Reading - the act of processing writing - is essential to a healthy human spirit, and healthy human spirits are necessary for stable communities. <b>Writing is vital.</b> It keeps our perspective in check. Perhaps it could be described as the guardian of our humanity. People who don't read aren't healthy people, and healthy people do unhealthy things. If you have a bunch of mentally ill people running around, they're going to do bad things, like shoot up schools and nightclubs or lynch people based on skin color or religious differences and other evils of that nature. As Herodotus said, <i>If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a
bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without
knowing it. </i>Sports ARE important to a healthy community, and good sportswriting is important, just not in the same way as reporting global events.<br />
<br />
This is the essence of why sportswriter egos drive me crazy. They're writing about sports, not saving the world. Yet many think that as journalists they are somehow better than others, more enlightened, that they are part of the fourth estate and therefore perform a vital democratic function. It's this kind of egoism that is destroying the sanctity of the Hall of Fame. Too many baseball writers make it about them and their "morals." The accomplishments of the players are secondary. Sometimes they are lost entirely. I can't stand it. I just can't stand the whole process. It's like watching pigeons fight over scraps of food, all puffed up, pretty feathers shining in the sun, when they're really just big poop bags. If you've ever been to Venice, you've been to St. Mark's Square, and you know about the pigeons and the big beautiful church, the sacred church, and how it's just covered with pigeon poop. The Hall of Fame selection process is like that.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8XiOIo0_v1wDM-KkEVj5TUx5AtBUk8knu2WP3m8kVk6m7iJ6LNUhxnXxj-rGySsu1_RGw8smQ3DDSk62VmH-Gw_-xTMC3dg-43P_AkQAITEkG51JCtGRD8H7aMB_V7HEeyxe/s1600/769494739_fc882e5721_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8XiOIo0_v1wDM-KkEVj5TUx5AtBUk8knu2WP3m8kVk6m7iJ6LNUhxnXxj-rGySsu1_RGw8smQ3DDSk62VmH-Gw_-xTMC3dg-43P_AkQAITEkG51JCtGRD8H7aMB_V7HEeyxe/s400/769494739_fc882e5721_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Mark's - Not my photo, as mine were taken with a film camera and are not in a digital file.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I don't like this new "transparent" ballot process at all, because it just gives them another stage to self aggrandize. Oh look, here's MY ballot, and this is why EYE chose/did not choose these players.<br />
<br />
Look, not every baseball writer is like this. I apologize to the good writers and those with whom I am friendly. But too many are, and they are, unfortunately, the loudest.<br />
<br />
<i>Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks, </i>said Herodotus. Barry Bonds was the best baseball player in history, and you're writing like Herodotus if you're ignoring everything but PED use. <i><br /></i><br />
<br />
What you're doing is basing everything on "what if." How many homers would Bonds have if he hadn't taken PEDs. How many strikeouts would Clemens have had he not taken PEDs. How much shorter would Barry's career have been had he not taken PEDs.<br />
<br />
But you don't ask What if PEDs had been available in Babe Ruth's era? Would he have taken them? The answer is most likely yes.<br />
<br />
What if Ruth had faced pitchers like Clemens? How many bases would Ty Cobb have stolen if he faced catchers like today? Would Walter Johnson have been a third or fourth starter if he played today? What if Honus Wagner had access to weight training and video like players today? How many more seasons would Sandy Koufax have pitched had Tommy John surgery been available to him, or Don Gullet, or Mark Fidrych. What if Bonds had faced the lower level of pitching that Ruth faced?<br />
<br />
We don't even know if performance enhancing drugs are even performance enhancing. We can see they probably prolong careers, but if you're going to punish guys for that, then you should punish guys for getting Tommy John surgery, too, because that heals guys and prolongs their careers.<br />
<br />
What PED HOF omissions really boil down to is keeping guys out for character flaws. If you're going to do that, you're going to have to take out most of the players, and sure as hell don't vote for that racist asshole Curt Schilling.<br />
<br />
What started as a tourist site and a marketing gimmick has become a part of our nation's history, a history that we are supposed to hold sacred. It was sacred once. The hallowed Hall. But, like the country itself, narcissism has destroyed it.<br />
<br />
What isn't sacred is profane by definition. <br />
<br />
The fact is, Bud Selig, who permitted steroids for profits, is in the Hall. I hate double standards. I hate hypocrisy. I hate self-aggrandizing egos. I hate that these narcissists are willfully destroying my childhood memories because some players wanted to be the best they could be. These players weren't kicked out of baseball for their deeds. They went to court and there wasn't enough to punish them, either. So we're left with the biases of the sportswriters and their subjective opinions, without any documentary evidence to back up their thoughts. You might as well be telling me about the golden ants the size of foxes in Persia or the gold hoarding cyclopes and griffins that Herodotus wrote about.<br />
<br />
I don't even care anymore. I'm not going to bother making a trip to Cooperstown until the best players are enshrined and the era of moralizing bullshit is over.<br />
<br />
I might never make it there.<br />
<br />
Herodotus was full of it, too.<br />
<br /></div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-37024300889285326752017-01-04T12:07:00.001-05:002017-01-04T12:07:32.042-05:00Sandbagger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I began to play Little League in second grade. We were the green team, sponsored by a local landscaping service in Englewood, Ohio. As a girl, I had to play softball rather than baseball. I'm not sure what I thought of that back then. I think it's BS now.<br />
<br />
I remember one moment of the tryouts - I was at second base and I missed a popup. Soon, one of the coaches moved me to the outfield. I asked, "is it because I missed that popup?" He laughed and assured me it was not.<br />
<br />
He was telling the truth. I turned out to be one of the best players in the league. Maybe the best. When it was time to move up to the older league, everyone knew I would be the top pick. But I wanted to play on the best team, and they wanted me to play for them, too. That's why they told me to sandbag the tryouts.<br />
<br />
I remember it pretty well, balls going through my legs, popups bouncing out of my glove, throws going well wide of the bases...at one point one of my future coaches ran by me and whispered, "don't make it so obvious."<br />
<br />
It worked. The coach of the red team, who had the first pick, wondered what had happened to me, according to my new green team coaches, who told me about it after the draft. We never lost a game that year.<br />
<br />
I played third base then, and pitched on occasion. When I got to junior high, we had no catcher, so I volunteered, never having played there before. Two years later, I was starting varsity as a freshman, catching one of the top pitchers in the state and winning our conference.<br />
<br />
We had moved. The coach of the Northmont High School team was upset that her catcher of the future was playing at a rival school. If we had stayed at Northmont, I probably would have played in college, because she cared about her players and worked to get them on college teams. My high school coach did not.<br />
<br />
I know the difference because my high school soccer coach did care, and I did visit colleges who were interested in having me play soccer for them because of his efforts. I hit .420 in league games and .360 something during my senior year - you'd think colleges would have been interested.<br />
<br />
In the end, I guess things worked out, as I was able to study abroad for a year, which put me on a career path in international affairs. That wouldn't have happened had I been playing college sports. Every approaching spring during college, however, I contemplated walking on and trying out.<br />
<br />
Funny, this thing called life.</div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-18358079730767771192017-01-03T09:28:00.001-05:002017-01-03T18:57:24.167-05:00New Year, New Blog Post<p dir="ltr">Of course, it won't last long, but I'm going to try to write a post a day, either on this blog or my other one, From Beirut to Jupiter. http://frombeiruttojupiter.blogspot.com</p>
<p dir="ltr">I'm not doing it for readers or revenue. I'm only doing it for myself, for the exercise of writing, so I can revisit the books I've started but never finished. Or something like that. I turn forty in a week, something that doesn't seem real to me. Except for a few more aches and pains and maybe something resembling cynicism, I don't feel that old. I know a lot more than I did ten years ago, but I think collective knowledge has gotten a lot less. So that's something. Or nothing.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When I turned thirty, there was no social media to distract me, just this blog and my other one under a different name. The Reds had won a World Series only sixteen seasons earlier, not twenty-six, which seems more respectable. We were in the midst of a disastrous presidency that has been forgotten in the last decade as we head towards one that will make Bush seem like George Washington or Abe Lincoln. I had yet to visit or live in Beirut then, and though I'd been working in the Mideast field for a few years, I had not yet developed a real expertise in the area. I went to protests as if they actually did anything, not yet understanding they were a waste of time. It's funny how naive you are at thirty. I suppose I will say the same thing about forty in another decade.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Reds were in the midst of being dreadful back then, dreadful in a different way than they are now. I always had hope, though, not like now when I can only muster fleeting moments of "maybe they'll surprise us." At least the Storen signing was something. How many wins did that disaster of a pen cost us last year? Has to be ten. The difference between horrendous and respectable, anyway.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I have mentioned that Chris is sick and is on the liver transplant list. He was in the hospital for a week at the beginning of last month, as the toxins had built up in his brain to dangerous levels. It was only then that I really started to think about what death is and the utter devastation I will feel if he doesn't make it through the transplant. I've never really known anybody who died before, aside from two grandfathers when I was barely old enough to grasp the finality of it all, meaning college aged. I just didn't get it. Of course, I was sad when they died, but it was in a different way. Maybe because they were both so sudden and unexpected. I had a grandmother who passed, too, but she was older and I was away and I really didn't get that, either. I guess death just didn't seem real. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I was drawn to war when I learned what it was. Rather, peace. I was drawn to the end of wars, studied international relations in college, stayed in Europe a year, went to all the war museums and memorials and that kind of thing and just couldn't believe that it could even happen, like it was all just a movie. Sure, we had some civil war battlefields in Ohio, but they were just fields now, the blood long dried and forgotten, so when we went to the American Cemetery in Luxembourg and saw Patton's grave, it was really my first contact with something war related. My father had been a Marine but the only war he saw was what he started in his own home.  I ended up joining the US Army when its stated mission was as a peacekeeping force, not an invasion force. The Clinton years were a fabulous time for peace on he surface. You had the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR at the start of the decade and the Irish peace accords near the end, and though there were some spectacular failures in the middle (Rwanda being the worst,) for the most part the Clinton administration had taken some giant steps towards a more peaceful world. I suppose Death took a holiday somewhere in that decade. Even with my personal losses I never felt his full effects.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But the nineties ended and a violent decade began. I started working with Arab activists and I was introduced to Death. Like everyone I meet, I forgot his name and had to pretend like I knew it every time he was around. I have met many people who had suffered from his cruel hand. I saw the scars of war both physical and mental when I lived in Beirut and they remind you that history isn't something in the past but it is living, we are living it now, when even the word now is then and we can't know what will happen in the next second. Most likely we will forget it, but every now and then one second changes everything.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One second. One sip of beer and I was talking to the obnoxious guy next to me at the bar and nearly five years later he is in my living room that is also his. I lock the door because Death could be roaming the neighborhood and I finally understand that he is devastation. I made it nearly four decades before I remembered his name after hospital machines whispered it. I sat in that room every night in desperate angst only to come home to an empty house. That's when it was the worst.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And you know what I longed for in those nights, other than Chris's healthy return? Baseball. It was a genuine, desperate longing and a soul crushing absence. Baseball can be a crutch, a pill, a healer. But it just wasn't there.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Winter is the cousin of Death.</p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-17139555746216385942016-10-28T16:42:00.001-04:002016-10-28T16:42:16.244-04:00At least they were baseball fans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Read the other parts of this series:</i><br />
<i>Part 1: <a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/06/baseball-is-life-during-wartime.html" target="_blank">Baseball and Life during Wartime</a></i><br />
<i>Part 2: <a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/07/baseball-and-life-during-peacetime.html" target="_blank">Baseball and Life during Peacetime</a></i><br />
<i>Part 3: <a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/08/propaganda-in-twenties.html" target="_blank">Propaganda in the Twenties</a></i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsld26G4Rn4nhm7R59lgV3G8RkN4x1lZvIXRyr9lGs8OHAp6_QULdUgcgUZ9uJzSSaIq2YZMzN5oS4grJfj6NQcgxL49i9LSjOENSD_OIhxPWPmeHAtRVPEeVkUanFnLbue0U/s1600/lf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsld26G4Rn4nhm7R59lgV3G8RkN4x1lZvIXRyr9lGs8OHAp6_QULdUgcgUZ9uJzSSaIq2YZMzN5oS4grJfj6NQcgxL49i9LSjOENSD_OIhxPWPmeHAtRVPEeVkUanFnLbue0U/s320/lf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The 1927 Yankees are considered by many to be the greatest baseball team of all time. (I would argue that a World Series between the 1976 Reds and the 1927 Yankees, adjusting for era differences, would result in a Reds win, but I could be biased.) Murderers Row were bashing baseballs and winning World Series at a rate never before seen, and America loved them.<br />
<br />
It was an era of great baseball and terrible presidents. First it was Warren Harding who oversaw perhaps the most corrupt administration in US history until he dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage. Some speculate that his wife, fed up with his well-known womanizing, poisoned him. Harding put the federal government on a budget for the first time, which helped created the false economic prosperity of the twenties that culminated with the Great Depression. The Teapot Dome scandal, the defining event of his lethiferous presidency, leased Navy petroleum reserves to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. No one was ever convicted of paying the bribes. Oil corrupts. Big Oil corrupts absolutely.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcAAIQmi0K9SgIICOGoJcF6TU74f0JEIRPZRWQxetx-8FgwTZRyW9MnwFalTHxdiea9L0GQCm0Q3nDmm7ehxZZ_ivDOzruECrtV414mnyleaehTbZqF3A4RItoXvH8uyDMeSW/s1600/hoovercoolidge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcAAIQmi0K9SgIICOGoJcF6TU74f0JEIRPZRWQxetx-8FgwTZRyW9MnwFalTHxdiea9L0GQCm0Q3nDmm7ehxZZ_ivDOzruECrtV414mnyleaehTbZqF3A4RItoXvH8uyDMeSW/s640/hoovercoolidge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If only the Nats had started their partnership with White House Historical Association sooner, we could have the full failure trio...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Next up came Calvin Coolidge, whose greatest sin was assembling a terrible cabinet of the wealthiest of men who put their own needs ahead of the needs of the country. Andrew Mellon reduced taxes on business and the wealthy five times during his eight years as Secretary of the Treasury, which continued us on a path towards the Great Depression. The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4RRyrSNhg8sC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=%22Never+before,+here+or+anywhere+else+has+a+government+been+so+completely+fused+with+business.%22&source=bl&ots=QoHHQW6bwb&sig=0UruXVnADkrKxQwddaw7DjbEOBA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD7uLQqv7PAhVk7oMKHZAsDfIQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22Never%20before%2C%20here%20or%20anywhere%20else%20has%20a%20government%20been%20so%20completely%20fused%20with%20business.%22&f=false" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a> wrote, "Never before, here or anywhere else has a government been so completely fused with business." The American right too often points to the Coolidge presidency as an exemplar of small-government conservatism, ignoring what happened next: the stock market crashed only eight months after he left office. Economic booms that are followed by economic disasters are not booms at all. They are like extending a spring, only to have it snap back to small again. It's not real prosperity. But you have to be able to view the world through the lens of time, where everything that happened before affects the now, and everything that happens now affects the future. There is too much shortsightedness and microcosmic decision-making among policy elites. Some people just don't understand that what happens now was set in motion months or years or decades or centuries ago. <br />
<br />
Herbert Hoover followed Coolidge with more shortsightedness, maintaining the tax cutting policies of his predecessor and supporting a tariff act that greatly exacerbated the effects of the depression. The depression wasn't his fault, of course, but he failed to steer the country out of it, leading to FDR's landslide victory in 1932. He had refused to let the government intervene in fixing prices, manipulate the value of currency, or partake in deficit spending. After his defeat, he predicted the New Deal would lead to an American version of Iron Cross, First Class or Il Duce. Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
The twenties were an era of complete and utter corruption, with Big Business controlling the reins of government. Heard that one before?<br />
<br />
Perhaps the only redeeming quality of Harding and Hoover is that they were big baseball fans. Coolidge was no fan and appeared at ballgames only for political photo ops. Useless. As a Senator, Harding once organized an <a href="http://www.hardinghome.org/with-indians-cubs-world-series-matchup-set-hardings-love-of-baseball-remembered/" target="_blank">exhibition game</a> between the Cubs and a semi-pro team in Marion, Ohio during the middle of the 1920 season. Hoover was a shortstop for Stanford until an injury ended his playing days. His <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/president-herbert-hoover-and-baseball" target="_blank">frequented MLB games</a> during his term as POTUS.<br />
<br />
The twenties were, to put it in simple terms, crazy and shortsighted. Across the Atlantic, Germany was a mess. You had the Social Democrats, democrats, and
Catholic centrists trying to govern while the socialists and
conservatives were trying to overthrow them, both despising the
fledgling democracy. The country suffered assassination after assassination by men on the extreme right, leading the government to institute anti-terrorism laws. Berlin ordered the dissolution of the militias running rampant in Bavaria and other regions, but when the government attempted to enforce the laws against terrorism, the Bavarian right, to which Iron Cross, First Class belonged, organized a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The Kapp Putsch failed <span class="_Tgc">to establish a rightwing autocratic government in 1920, and the Beer Hall Putsch failed </span><span class="_Tgc"><span class="_Tgc">to do the same thing</span> three years later.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">By 1923, the German mark was useless. Goaded by the big industrialists and landlords who stood to gain from the tumbling mark, the government purposely let the currency collapse despite financially ruining the masses of German citizens. The destruction of the currency enabled German Big Business to wipe out its debt. Yet the masses did not realize how much the industrial tycoons, the Army, and the State were benefiting from the ruin of the currency. Had they been paying attention, they may not have been so quick to elect a dictator.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">Monetary policy across the globe was all over the place in the twenties, and none of it was very good. The US was well into its first decade of the Federal Reserve system,</span><span class="_Tgc"> a mechanism for private banks to lend funds to one another, thus ensuring there is always a flow of money. In theory, anyway. The first incarnation had some problems, to put it mildly. Under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (the triumvirate of pre-Great Depression failure), the Federal Reserve deliberately ignored sound empirical policy framework. Instead of focusing on money stock, price level, and other quantity theory indicators, the Fed focused on market interest rates, member bank borrowing, and commercial paper eligible for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rediscount" target="_blank">rediscount</a>. While statistical analysis in the twenties was primitive compared to today's standards, the fact that the Fed shunned such analysis is astounding, at least in hindsight. Of course, the Fed was created as a decentralized and non-interventionist system, but by the twenties, some economists were clamoring about stabilization. They advocated that the Federal Reserve Act be amended to make price stability the main responsibility of the Fed and that a centralized authority should unify the policy actions of the individual reserve banks. Their advice went unheeded...</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Babe Ruth was the highest paid player for thirteen years straight, starting in 1922, when he made $52,000. He would peak at $80,000 in 1930 before dropping to $35,000 in 1934. You can see the impact the Great Depression had on player salaries. </div>
<br />
In 1930, the average American income was just under $2000. Ruth's salary was 40 times that and 2.4 times greater than the next highest, Rogers Hornsby, a gap that has not been reached since (Alex Rodriguez came close at 38%). Ruth put butts in seats, and Hornsby was a jerk, which may have hurt his salary a bit, but Ruth was one of the biggest stars in a country that was just coming to develop a culture of celebrity worship. When asked if he thought he deserved to be making more money than Hoover, Ruth said, “Why not? I had a better year than he did.” <br />
<br />
When Ruth's salary dropped to $35,000 in 1934, the average American salary had dropped to $1600. A chicken in every pot? Not even close.<br />
<br />
Sixty home runs! Sixty!<br />
<br />
Before Babe Ruth hit 29 homers in 1919, the single season record was 27, set by the Cubs' Ned Williamson in 1884. I mean, if you consider hitting a ball over the wall at Chicago Lake Front Park (dimensions: 186", CF 300" and RF 196") a home run. MLB does, but can you imagine a ballpark that small? He hit 54 in 1920 and 59 in 1921 before suffering an injury shortened season in 1922, when he <i>only</i> hit 35. He hit 41 and 46 the next two seasons but in 1925, a <a href="http://www.thisgreatgame.com/1925-baseball-history.html" target="_blank">serious intestinal issue</a> caused by his lifestyle limited him to 98 games and 25 homers. “Day and night, broads and booze,” recounted teammate Joe Dugan. In 1926, he was back to form, slugging 46 homers before that magical 1927 season.<br />
<br />
In 1926, a man by the name of <a href="http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/fc619643" target="_blank">Otto Hess</a> died. He was a Swiss immigrant who became a Major League Pitcher - still the only Swiss-born MLB player. He had one good season. His name will rarely come up in a discussion about baseball, nor will it come up in a discussion about almost anything, unless you're talking about <a href="http://didthetribewinlastnight.com/blog/2012/09/18/pity-poor-otto-hess/" target="_blank">wild pitches</a>. But he does have the distinction of being one of only five players to have fought in both the Spanish-American War and World War I. (The others were <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Ben_Caffyn" target="_blank">Ben Caffyn</a>, <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Jacob_Doyle" target="_blank">Jacob Doyle</a>, <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Arlie_Pond" target="_blank">Arlie Pond</a>, and <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/John_Grimes" target="_blank">John Grimes</a>, who also fought in the Indian Wars. They deserve to be remembered.) Hess died after suffering for a decade with tuberculosis that he contracted while serving in France in World War I.<br />
<br />
Rudolf Hess, of no relation, was born into a wealthy family of German merchants living in Egypt. Upon the start of
World War I, he volunteered and became an officer in the same regiment
as Iron Cross, First Class, but they never met. They did, however,
suffer through the same battle that saw 2,900 German soldiers die over
four days. He attended some of the early meetings when
Iron Cross spoke, and reports surfaced about him asking "Was this
thundering orator foolish or was he the Messiah?"<br />
<br />
He went with Messiah, and wrote his thesis at University of Munich about his future fuhrer, entitled, "How Must the Man Be Constituted Who Will Lead Germany Back to Her Old Heights?" Translated into simpleton, that is: Make Germany Great Again.<br />
<br />
Hess wrote, "Where all authority has vanished, only a man of the people can establish authority...The deeper the dictator was originally rooted in the broad masses, the better he understands how to treat them psychologically, the less the workers will distrust him, the more supporters he will win among these most energetic ranks of the people. He himself has nothing in common with the mass; like every great man he is all personality...When necessity commands, he does not shrink before bloodshed. Great questions are always decided by blood and iron...The lawgiver proceeds with terrible hardness...As the need arises, he can trample them [the people] with the boots of a grenadier..."<br />
<br />
<i>He himself has nothing in common with the mass...</i><br />
<br />
<i>Like every great man, he is all personality... </i><br />
<br />
"Where the salvation of the nation is in question, he does not disdain utilizing the weapons of the adversary, demagogy, slogans, processions, etc."<br />
<br />
<i>Make My Country Great Again.</i> <br />
<br />
"Down with the traitors of the Fatherland! Down with the November criminals!" Such were the cries from the crowds of people who watched these rightwing demagogues give violent speeches against the national government. <br />
<br />
<i>Lock her up.</i><br />
<br />
Propaganda. How easily the human mind is manipulated. How easily that is remedied, but the masses are too intellectually lazy to learn. <br />
<br />
It continues to blow my mind that people CHOOSE dictatorships. These are people who either benefit directly from such regimes (money, power, or both) or those who really aren't all that bright and can't grasp the implications of such an arrangement. Most often it's the former convincing the latter to go along with it.<br />
<br />
After the Beer Hall Putsch, Iron Cross, First Class went to trial and spent nine months in a jail for the privileged. The socialists who had also revolted at a different place, including Rosa Luxemburg, were executed without trial. That was the privilege of being rightwing in an anti-government climate, where conservatives defended the Kaiser and the war and held the economic power in the country. Their wealth subsidized their political parties and the press.<br />
<br />
At the trial, Iron Cross, First Class was defiantly proud of his rebellion, stating, "I wanted to be the destroyer of Marxism." His hatred for democracy, Marxism, and Jews was captured in a book he wrote while in prison and had wanted to call "Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice." It sold 9,473 copies in 1925.<br />
<br />
In 1930, the year Babe Ruth was paid $80,000 to play baseball, "My Struggle" sold 54,086 copies. By the time Iron Cross, First Class was elected by a grossly deceived population as Chancellor of Germany, the book sold a million copies, earning $300,000 dollars for its author in a time of global economic chaos.<br />
<br />
<i>To be continued...</i><br />
<br /></div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-35442091886519336412016-10-20T12:38:00.001-04:002016-10-20T14:17:18.153-04:00Half a life ago<p dir="ltr">I was in college the last time the Indians were in the World Series. Remember that team? I can still name the whole lineup - Thome at first, Baerga at second, Vizquel at short, Fryman at third, Manny, Kenny, and Joey called Albert manning the outfield, Sandy behind the plate... Oh wait, Baerga and Belle were gone by then, and Fryman didn't come until the next year.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Funny how fragile memory is. I should have at least remembered that Matt Williams was at third.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Those were some great teams - five first place finishes in a row, culminating with a 1997 pennant. I was studying in Luxembourg that autumn, the junior year that changed everything. I didn't get to watch any of the playoffs, not that I can remember anyway, but we did get to see a few World Series games. Back then, we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to a baseball game, and MLB.TV hadn't been invented yet.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We watched a couple of games at my host family's house. The games were condensed, so they lasted less than two hours. I tried not to find out the scores before watching, but sometimes a student would give it away. Kramer!</p>
<p dir="ltr">My host father is, well, a racist. He watched a game with us and I'll never forget his amusement at the fact that Devon White was a black guy with the last name White. It is, in fact, my strongest memory of the entire World Series. How strange is that?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Other games we watched at a local bar right next to our school. It was full of old, grumpy men and my housemate and I were two college girls demanding that an old, grumpy bartender play a foreign sport that nobody watched there on the single, small screen television in the corner of the bar. I think we watched two games in there under the unwelcoming eyes of the bar's aged patrons. But he let us watch.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The things you do for baseball.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I don't remember too much about the specifics of the Series, but I do remember the disappointment as the fake team with the rent-a-players and the evil owner poured onto the field in triumph. I had liked the Indians as the "other" Ohio team and had even seen a game at Municipal Stadium back when they were ripe for a comedy to be made about them. That Game 7 loss was tough.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A Cubs-Indians World Series is gonna be classic. Hopefully, Cleveland won't be on the losing end this time.</p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-20146490938638422672016-10-11T13:01:00.001-04:002016-10-11T13:01:48.800-04:00Z is for Zombie<p dir="ltr">Oh, the suffering! Droopy eyes, foggy brain, yawning mouth opening and closing like Chris Christie's refrigerator, swells of coffee useless against the ravages of sleep deprivation. But for what, I ask?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Ratings!</p>
<p dir="ltr">Ratings? How? When most of the weary country partakes in nocturnal routine, slumbering while the boys of summer are lumbering through a California autumn, how can ratings be more than a pipe dream conjured by the opiates of greed and bad decisions?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Three ay em, the wee hours, dreamland, a pipe dream for the diehard. The diehard is dying. While the powers that be have no problem starting the "lesser" teams at lesser times, we lesser people are to choose between the sacred advent of our chosen religion and the debilitating case of lesser sleep.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The woe of bias, of favoritism, a team of interest, yes, but not three hours into a new day, not even after 108 years (108 stitches)...why must we the people of baseball suffer so? </p>
<p dir="ltr">I hope the Cubs lose to spite MLB.</p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-62473339362411801322016-09-27T17:28:00.001-04:002016-09-27T18:23:48.159-04:00Refugee<p dir="ltr">I have spent most of my adult life working with democracy and peace activists. These include people who have been imprisoned, tortured, exiled, whose family and friends have been destroyed by dictators or war or both, whose lives have been wrecked and sometimes rebuilt and sometimes wrecked again. It's not a pretty world we live in, but it's one we can make better.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I was thinking about Jose Fernandez, as all of us have been, and marveling at what he went through to get here, a refugee from an oppressive regime who risked his life to immigrate to the United States, who traveled here illegally and ended up becoming an American citizen. His name was well-known to the baseball world, but maybe not to the casual fan, until fate put him on a late night boat ride. So many Cuban ballplayers have risked their lives for a sip of the American Dream. We let them, because they are good at sports, but many others are turned away. Things are getting easier since relations with Cuba are thawing, and ballplayers will soon be able to play baseball in the US without risking their lives. It has been incredible to witness this turn of events, to watch history unfold, and I look forward to visiting Cuba one day in the near future.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Why do we value the lives of sports figures more than others? What if Jose had been a doctor instead, or an engineer, or a teacher? Would we mourn him, praise his daring journey to this nation of immigrants, congratulate him on becoming a citizen? Or would we call him a rapist and murderer and call for tougher measures to prevent his kind from getting in?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Given that most Americans have never left the country, let alone visited a refugee camp, they can't even fathom the conditions in which millions of human beings find themselves today, through no fault of their own. More than 60 million people are displaced in this world, meaning they have escaped war or oppression and have no home to return to. Most of them live in refugee camps, which can be tent cities or actual buildings, depending on where in the world and who are the people. The lucky few establish permanent residency somewhere else or even citizenship.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One stunning example of this contrast can be found in Lebanon, where I spent about a year over a two year period working with civil society organizations. After the Turks committed genocide against the Armenians in the early twentieth century, many Armenians found refuge in Beirut. They established a refugee camp that today is just a Beirut neighborhood, albeit with Armenian flavor. The Palestinians did not fare so well during the establishment and expansion of Israel after World War II. They live in dilapidated structures and enjoy few basic rights like citizenship or employment in many professions, as they have been restricted to menial labor. Poverty is rampant; the camps are often the sites of violence and bloodshed. You can go to the Armenian neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud to the infamous Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatilla in a few minutes by car, yet they are two different worlds. Lebanon also has a million Syrian refugees (the Lebanese population is only four million), as well as refugees from Iraq. And that's just a tiny swath of land barely visible on a world map.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If your heart breaks for Jose Fernandez, if you are sending your "thoughts and prayers" to him and his family, please take some time, too, to think about so many others who have been through something similar as he had and how so many meet tragic ends that go unheralded. Maybe Jose's senseless death can help us to remember them, perhaps finding one ray of light in all the darkness. What is a life, after all, if it does not beget good? Why did we care so deeply about his death, though few of us knew him in life? Because humanity is deep down our true nature. In these times when it seems as if we are surrounded by cruelty and evil, we recognized good in that smile, and even the hardest of hearts felt a stirring, a reminder that the world is flawed but can be good, <i>is</i> probably more good than not.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I have to wonder if more people would care about Syrian refugees if they were good at sports. Sadly, I think the answer is "yes." Let's change that. I have to believe we can. </p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-16182355357645836212016-09-27T12:14:00.001-04:002016-09-27T13:21:52.263-04:00Something<p dir="ltr">Well, now, this is the part of the season when it should be exciting, but the races were so dull this year you'd think they just wanted to avoid any discussion about "race" like most of white America...</p>
<p dir="ltr">I'm rooting for the Orioles but they seem hell bent on October vacations. The Nats are all injured now and to be honest I think they were the only team who could have beaten the Cubs in the NLCS. I don't want the Cubs because it would break tradition, and besides, they are in the Reds' division and should be rooted against like they have goat herpes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Of course I will watch the games but the Reds were so awful this year that I lost a lot of interest in baseball in general. I mean, it's one thing to not make the playoffs, but it's another to have the worst pitching staff in the history of baseball and to watch lead after lead blown by a bullpen worthy of the '62 Mets.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I stopped going to Nats games because of the fans and because of the ridiculous ticket prices. I have lost a lot of enthusiasm for that team and doubt it comes back unless they start improving the baseball experience at the ballpark, meaning less social activities and more baseball watching, more Washington baseball history around the ballpark, encouraging people to stay in their seats and stay for nine innings, and less faux patriotism and conservative back-patting. Sometimes it seems like baseball is an afterthought at Nats Park.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Despite Cubs being favorites, it's more of the same old same old in terms of playoff teams. Seven of the last ten World Series have been won by three teams. I'm sure if the Reds won three or four I wouldn't be complaining, but yawn.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We went to OPACY last week and the stadium was half empty but it was still a good crowd and that ballpark is magical. </p>
<p dir="ltr">This blog post is about nothing. </p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-64312197053140532182016-08-04T19:01:00.001-04:002016-08-04T19:01:45.525-04:00The Sacred and the Profane (Part 1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwNHo90H4lrG6ssEmimmZmtVHHqUxNx95i84neQCHRaohyphenhyphenT_h2VB60XIF5kaOOf3rW8WgUDqwDGo9mZhj9PAOCJ4bcYhsaKNzrj3G1-LflH8FqdzFWghZ5xKI2WamJKWFCSmi/s1600/DSC_0382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwNHo90H4lrG6ssEmimmZmtVHHqUxNx95i84neQCHRaohyphenhyphenT_h2VB60XIF5kaOOf3rW8WgUDqwDGo9mZhj9PAOCJ4bcYhsaKNzrj3G1-LflH8FqdzFWghZ5xKI2WamJKWFCSmi/s640/DSC_0382.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I had been there once before, in another lifetime, but even time could not erase the memories of that trip. It's almost cliche to call it a cathedral, but that's what it is, something sacred to our hearts and our identities as Americans, even those who don't know it, those who try to tear down sacred things, be it mentally or physically or with cliches and overkill, or those who reconstruct history so that the things we hold dear don't matter anymore.<br />
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They do. They do matter more than ever as we lose our identities in the soulless system we have constructed for our lives, one devoid of meaning, one that sneers at "sacred" and "tradition" and seeks always for new new new and buy buy buy and change for the sake of change only, our sad society of marketing and isolation.<br />
<br />
Even the names of the streets surrounding Fenway Park are sacred. Ipswich. Landsdowne. Yawkey.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix71qzDXRMajqlvuuGu7RAhSVSD9_X45sU39bD0thZS8wmTEP1bwhyzuPYu6Upicm6iyK4wBmrqAPYwrhGJ0vGRDr5iPsxChTOIMcrOsrR753XbV_4VYB3QJwgerkNFMCgYcB0/s1600/DSC_0567.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix71qzDXRMajqlvuuGu7RAhSVSD9_X45sU39bD0thZS8wmTEP1bwhyzuPYu6Upicm6iyK4wBmrqAPYwrhGJ0vGRDr5iPsxChTOIMcrOsrR753XbV_4VYB3QJwgerkNFMCgYcB0/s640/DSC_0567.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Of course we know the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/12/06/thomas-yawkey-way-represents-century-boston-and-don-need-yawkey-way/5onMIw3vE6cNAyeZXs9NAN/story.html" target="_blank">racist legacy</a> of Tom Yawkey. From a Globe columnist: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
That the Red Sox are so central to the city’s psyche makes it even more
urgent for Boston to act now to banish this legacy of racism.</blockquote>
The Red Sox were the last team to integrate, this we know. Jackie Robinson and two other black players had a tryout for the Sox in 1945 but were not signed. This we also know. <br />
<br />
But the Red Sox would not even be there were it not for Tom Yawkey. To call it Yawkey Way is not to overlook his glaring flaws. To pretend it never happened? That is to forget history, and to forget history is to repeat it.<br />
<br />
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.<br />
<br />
Wait...I just can't. Just rename the damn street and let's move on. This isn't change for the sake of change or new new new. This is taking the profanity out of the sacred. The guy was an active racist at a time when our moral values as a society were changing for the better. As the Civil Rights Movement raged on, Yawkey continued to defy progress.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRyz_QKNy7UNGDJ9syUnr1HMHV4_nzgCDe_pH_r8nZT_QMUmC6J3ApV3kb0ziyWedjTq2DOdkcl2QJgqtuwYSamNb2ovDGsrbEMlqKS_avjc2v1RNERY1pKA9axK15HWGT44i/s1600/DSC_0585.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRyz_QKNy7UNGDJ9syUnr1HMHV4_nzgCDe_pH_r8nZT_QMUmC6J3ApV3kb0ziyWedjTq2DOdkcl2QJgqtuwYSamNb2ovDGsrbEMlqKS_avjc2v1RNERY1pKA9axK15HWGT44i/s640/DSC_0585.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
How about Ted Williams Way?<br />
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Fenway Park. Home of the Boston Red Sox. These are magical words to a baseball fan. This is a cathedral. This is sacred. You can roll your eyes at the use of "cathedral" or "sacred," but that just makes something wrong with you. The language of baseball is full of cliches, yes, but no other game has had more effect on our language than baseball. The cliches are cliches because media personalities are not as skilled in the art of language as they once were. Think about it. What distinguishes a Vin Scully or a Marty Brennaman from a Bob Carpenter or a Thom Brennaman is a mastery of the English language. Some creative chap came up with the terms "can of corn," "bush leaguer," and "hot corner." Have any good terms entered the baseball lexicon in the last ten years? We can't even come up with good nicknames anymore. (A-Rod, K-Rod, etc.)<br />
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Fenway Park is not a cliche.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYzI7eqIxttd-zIcbYqbcnsEwWdGRGAHLzZo1Q4XnjzsutVcDKr7UXiep9NemTxagtbkdNGH70Yhe-tOO6BBJ8SPdxZb5Blb7s4DGYni3er1gnfdYHi26GIiPAV8pz2UuVpnO/s1600/DSC_0566.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYzI7eqIxttd-zIcbYqbcnsEwWdGRGAHLzZo1Q4XnjzsutVcDKr7UXiep9NemTxagtbkdNGH70Yhe-tOO6BBJ8SPdxZb5Blb7s4DGYni3er1gnfdYHi26GIiPAV8pz2UuVpnO/s640/DSC_0566.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Playing the Indians is just a coincidence </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3MUJ_n-b4gXuV4nOAJIiz5ngetpmqqYcRqBeElGzVtA6Gghkm7ebf0iph38r0Y5gJBeBVrYbAy834n5o5i_my03Qw3gPjkPMW1ReJY9_oBKUXtJUkNLcsj9sqnW3-k3ZOotgg/s1600/DSC_0583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3MUJ_n-b4gXuV4nOAJIiz5ngetpmqqYcRqBeElGzVtA6Gghkm7ebf0iph38r0Y5gJBeBVrYbAy834n5o5i_my03Qw3gPjkPMW1ReJY9_oBKUXtJUkNLcsj9sqnW3-k3ZOotgg/s320/DSC_0583.JPG" width="213" /></a>We tore our country down and put up corporate chains and strip malls
and housing developments to isolate ourselves from each other. They
tried to tear down this ballpark but the people said no. The people.
Because when does it stop?<br />
<br />
There's a reason populism
reared its ugly head in this election cycle. People think Sanders or
Trump are going to give them back what they think politicians took from
them. But politicians didn't take from them. Corporations did. And the
people let them. Fenway is one of the few relics left from a time when
our communities and cities had an identity, before there was a Starbucks on every corner and people got excited when a Five Guys came into their neighborhood. You don't think it matters, but it does. There is a soullessness to Americans today, an emptiness, excused away by "chemical imbalances" like depression or ADHD, but these are really a result of a crisis of identity. Hence the reason people cling so desperately to tribalism and ideology and whatever is trendy and how they fall so easily for marketing and propaganda. They feel an intense need to belong to something, to identify with something, anything, to fill the hole where meaning should be.<br />
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Fenway means something to people. Ballparks and baseball mean something to people. Having something stand for so long makes it a part of a culture and gives a society identity. The Red Sox cap might as well be a City of Boston uniform. The team is as much a part of Boston as Guinness and cah pahks. Frankly, I'm jealous. Riverfront Stadium wasn't the prettiest park, but it was a part of my childhood and part of my identity. I'm also jealous of the kids who are growing up with GABp and the Banks area. What a great job they've done around the ballpark. I hope those kids don't suffer the sight of their ballpark being torn down. Maybe we'll regain some sense by the time they reach that age. Hope springs eternal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0yMzodw2GEoz8blH6MPjrZN4D9BYL_ADDN_6D0aH3ltTnYMi4QultxGEMyhpUYB8OvwXAh-m-X9CiQkXjjHJgRQd8acXOJX2cbleLcr7MzA9ustfjnyqrqKlNBikK7C5C1zmw/s1600/DSC_0572.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0yMzodw2GEoz8blH6MPjrZN4D9BYL_ADDN_6D0aH3ltTnYMi4QultxGEMyhpUYB8OvwXAh-m-X9CiQkXjjHJgRQd8acXOJX2cbleLcr7MzA9ustfjnyqrqKlNBikK7C5C1zmw/s640/DSC_0572.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEius-DdB9loMWslpdiz1-Js78mxgBmISP0A5XzJcbmmZ0lJpiTMNXlAKKPr7p7mNUQ-vBkP9MQNmONoMPHOw9JBSs5cFZ8RLuXFbhya9gDMc7wTKXD1nXRJYuq1TRM2pNIPHK4I/s1600/DSC_0577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEius-DdB9loMWslpdiz1-Js78mxgBmISP0A5XzJcbmmZ0lJpiTMNXlAKKPr7p7mNUQ-vBkP9MQNmONoMPHOw9JBSs5cFZ8RLuXFbhya9gDMc7wTKXD1nXRJYuq1TRM2pNIPHK4I/s640/DSC_0577.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM5T2GboND9k4cOXA7nMEtttxV5Lssj9sMbTqESpsT0E30sRCQG2PWaYzR6vK3eGpNtBYsm55-nFsDlOwR50ow687tjYbTV-nFcbvLwhPl91UAETgF0GxC6-JrVJ-sCEAabA6/s1600/DSC_0578.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM5T2GboND9k4cOXA7nMEtttxV5Lssj9sMbTqESpsT0E30sRCQG2PWaYzR6vK3eGpNtBYsm55-nFsDlOwR50ow687tjYbTV-nFcbvLwhPl91UAETgF0GxC6-JrVJ-sCEAabA6/s640/DSC_0578.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first World Series</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The butterflies-in-stomach feeling that I get when I go to most ballparks (Nats Park, Citi Field, and Target Field are notable exceptions) was more pronounced when I went to Fenway in May. We took a tour on a Saturday morning before a game started at 4pm. We were going to the game the next day. It was fun to climb around the ballpark without any people in the stands. Here are some pics from the tour:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BMxzhsP2lDGAZJhw1dsotGJw33oW2R9rY3hHR1TvY35fYZMDRjXMIM4xTcKGy8doVL4-2XiY_HSIpKx9bFO-uXkzJMCqY4XKb_uF65EHUJPuudMhFvyjRxEV9MgvdrNQz9bh/s1600/DSC_0582.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BMxzhsP2lDGAZJhw1dsotGJw33oW2R9rY3hHR1TvY35fYZMDRjXMIM4xTcKGy8doVL4-2XiY_HSIpKx9bFO-uXkzJMCqY4XKb_uF65EHUJPuudMhFvyjRxEV9MgvdrNQz9bh/s640/DSC_0582.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haha, losers!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1GcSZYqtsNiDDwtbfKRT3dN3D3CB5uxnb_gl6CIvexsB0q0dvBL_4_nO5qSricxePa-Wos1YDXR27KMDRyy8wFGv-EPx4pcEfV4uF5vC3_XCm7S0i3f5XHLR8BRamGTCOo2CO/s1600/DSC_0586.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1GcSZYqtsNiDDwtbfKRT3dN3D3CB5uxnb_gl6CIvexsB0q0dvBL_4_nO5qSricxePa-Wos1YDXR27KMDRyy8wFGv-EPx4pcEfV4uF5vC3_XCm7S0i3f5XHLR8BRamGTCOo2CO/s640/DSC_0586.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even the restrooms are sponsored.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzMLkLjT3PMhbIJUSPHODn90oTtVTNi8Bwh7mugTj1NTwOaqodlYv_CH25bBx8PF3poX-kRwGmkqM3AZKUer-LJ_KdJzTTLRVmNoAOqxNV3YHv2WGq7CLT-M2rI-IFXKCpM0H/s1600/DSC_0587.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzMLkLjT3PMhbIJUSPHODn90oTtVTNi8Bwh7mugTj1NTwOaqodlYv_CH25bBx8PF3poX-kRwGmkqM3AZKUer-LJ_KdJzTTLRVmNoAOqxNV3YHv2WGq7CLT-M2rI-IFXKCpM0H/s640/DSC_0587.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is something mysterious about an empty ballpark.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjawklR-qcFC3HitqK7IPxGIpPf0fTdgmiKkiXeClGBnXHw2-hCktsES0neSqwF5PhLcnPeUjI6XrazsG6phJDJX9ItaMuG2CX1NI6UUg1fh4jhitZQqvzBjlFIfri6tGFt1qM5/s1600/DSC_0604.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjawklR-qcFC3HitqK7IPxGIpPf0fTdgmiKkiXeClGBnXHw2-hCktsES0neSqwF5PhLcnPeUjI6XrazsG6phJDJX9ItaMuG2CX1NI6UUg1fh4jhitZQqvzBjlFIfri6tGFt1qM5/s640/DSC_0604.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These have to be uncomfortable sitting there for nine innings. Or even one.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgg72ijgMcM5p3Y6e89YFtCwVJa_CFY1UYxKvSfqfcWeDuG4dUBwX3GiOTeDUp8_xjBG31TT8DSMRy4NeqtDKH7SlAwgardOi1HjSECt4zIDn3zPL7ZH5Y0K5tDEGkpK3vW8PT/s1600/DSC_0624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgg72ijgMcM5p3Y6e89YFtCwVJa_CFY1UYxKvSfqfcWeDuG4dUBwX3GiOTeDUp8_xjBG31TT8DSMRy4NeqtDKH7SlAwgardOi1HjSECt4zIDn3zPL7ZH5Y0K5tDEGkpK3vW8PT/s640/DSC_0624.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seems to be as famous as the ballpark.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMt4AupI2SEfQ_SXnMBUtet2e-9vl_zf4obcjrUPrHy7PNi6nYwG5XnFfFip8mIKA3qNslK5sbaQ3YHSojPJAFZ7nzD7Y8dxTt9F6Wlhc2XeJONWFQu3t0m80S820qU4jnVd3/s1600/DSC_0628.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMt4AupI2SEfQ_SXnMBUtet2e-9vl_zf4obcjrUPrHy7PNi6nYwG5XnFfFip8mIKA3qNslK5sbaQ3YHSojPJAFZ7nzD7Y8dxTt9F6Wlhc2XeJONWFQu3t0m80S820qU4jnVd3/s640/DSC_0628.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reason people think the Sox won that series...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6D9LHdiutFHi2z0_L-C1xDg1pMZSgt20LcDYJfmlzRXwv8DSSKMdWlNRH9yIXqR8hz21SHTsBH4PnnALrE2uhWQV5fb2teSaTFemt74WyO2kAn8IkmNhyphenhyphenbuMuIMv2PDZ1gG4/s1600/DSC_0638.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6D9LHdiutFHi2z0_L-C1xDg1pMZSgt20LcDYJfmlzRXwv8DSSKMdWlNRH9yIXqR8hz21SHTsBH4PnnALrE2uhWQV5fb2teSaTFemt74WyO2kAn8IkmNhyphenhyphenbuMuIMv2PDZ1gG4/s640/DSC_0638.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They have their own garden. That would be an awesome job!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">500 footer</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZBMiS8tkpGnb4n5sQDiLNQrn8ORu6pofPg4TOFq7IPqA9KuW4er9g16SGblY9UXikfEv3-8gq4aFYnVwPS26hh9RVMzYC-A0gsoWL9U0ePRHVYF8dF7pcyx6EBycFRaf2Tba/s1600/DSC_0655.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZBMiS8tkpGnb4n5sQDiLNQrn8ORu6pofPg4TOFq7IPqA9KuW4er9g16SGblY9UXikfEv3-8gq4aFYnVwPS26hh9RVMzYC-A0gsoWL9U0ePRHVYF8dF7pcyx6EBycFRaf2Tba/s640/DSC_0655.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The meager museum room made me appreciate the Reds Hall of Fame Museum even more.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Put him in the Hall!</td></tr>
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To be continued...<br />
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Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-84495682231988258362016-08-01T20:00:00.001-04:002016-08-01T20:00:13.656-04:00Propaganda in the Twenties<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/06/baseball-is-life-during-wartime.html" target="_blank">Part 1 of this series</a><br />
<a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/07/baseball-and-life-during-peacetime.html" target="_blank">Part 2 of this series</a><br />
<br />
Part 3:<br />
<br />
You have to understand what propaganda is to grasp just how dangerous it is. But you also have to learn to recognize it when you see it so you don't fall victim to it.<br />
<br />
If you are reading this, you probably have fallen victim to propaganda. If you've ever purchased something you have seen in an ad, you are a victim of propaganda.<br />
<br />
The word first came into use in the seventeenth century as the Catholic Church was trying to recover from the Protestant schism. (If you're Catholic you are probably familiar with the <span class="_Tgc">Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.) Of course, it wasn't the first time propaganda was used. You can find recorded instances dating back to ancient Athens. You know about Greek theater - but did you know it was very often used as propaganda? Of course you do know if you know anything at all about ancient Greek theater. Of course you do. And those who don't? Shame on you! Ancient Greece is part of American history, after all.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">The twenties were a time when propaganda was becoming its own kind of institution, a time when Edward Bernays had yet to overthrow governments with US taxpayer dollars but was still selling you soap and cigarettes with his uncle Freud's psychology theories, his uncle, father of modern psychology, the man who theorized about the id and the ego.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">Ego has, for some reason, become synonymous for narcissism and self-importance, but that is not the original meaning of the word. The "ego" simply means "self." More specifically, it's the part of the mind that mediates between the conscience and the unconscience. It's what gives a person a sense of identity.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">Then again, psychology itself is misunderstood. You can thank American pop psychologists whose egos in the general sense of the word reduced the real science of psychology to a pseudoscience, a grand tradition that continues today with such celebrities as Dr. Phil.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">What is the science of psychology, then? It is the study of the human mind. It seeks to understand human behavior through the conscious and unconscious experiences of individuals AND groups.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">Like everything in life, it can be used for evil. </span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">While white Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were slugging homers and entertaining white and black Americans alike, an Austrian corporal enamored with his white skin was beginning to understand the power of psychology to promote an agenda. Ideas were one thing, but symbols, flags, and fear would win over supporters. </span><span class="_Tgc"><span class="_Tgc">Symbols ARE important to our world. Semiotics (or
semiology) is the study of signs, symbols, and how they are significant.
It is closely related to the field of linguistics, which studies words.
Both are inseparable from psychology, and from these comes propaganda.</span> He thought the Social Democrats he despised had used what he called the "infamous spiritual and physical terror" to win supporters in Vienna. Fear is a powerful seller.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">Iron Cross, First Class assigned ex-servicemen to
National Socialist meetings to silence hecklers and protestors, then
organized Ordnertruppe - strong arm squads - to keep order. Later they
were officially renamed "Sturmabteilung." Storm Troopers. They wore
brown shirts and eventually took to breaking up meetings of OTHER
political parties. Political rallies became violent. Iron Cross, First
Class even led one of these attacks, which landed him a three month
prison sentence (only one of which he served.)</span><span class="_Tgc"><br /></span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">The concept of the "hero" is also a good seller, born of the same manipulation as fear. Though baseball players had been used to sell products since the late nineteenth century (the famous Honus Wagner baseball card was printed for a tobacco company,) it wasn't until the twenties when endorsements began to be common as the United States was undergoing what could be called a "consumer revolution." Prior to WWI, endorsements were rare and were mostly limited to sporting goods, part of the reason baseball developed a reputation as a "healthy" endeavor.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj272xYfFPPk3816r5eUXP83hSpeJDYXWOMX4-mRZYGH-bN5z30CfFDNyXZYSNtwPATMcfg4eAtG-r5WPmITL73x37ixO076LvnAu8FQcl_IfX9NluNWwjLS_7ub7xVJv0-xTak/s1600/ChtNIB6WUAECyrE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj272xYfFPPk3816r5eUXP83hSpeJDYXWOMX4-mRZYGH-bN5z30CfFDNyXZYSNtwPATMcfg4eAtG-r5WPmITL73x37ixO076LvnAu8FQcl_IfX9NluNWwjLS_7ub7xVJv0-xTak/s400/ChtNIB6WUAECyrE.jpg" width="312" /></a><span class="_Tgc">Then came the ads for cigarettes, beer, sodas, and guns, among other things. As endorsement advertising grew, so, too did the controversy surround it. Baseball Commissioner Landis worried that money for endorsing products was a guise for payment to throw games, though he never acted on it. Endorsements were seen as fraud by many parties, including the FTC, not to mention that Americans widely viewed the practice as objectionable. (The fraud charges continued for decades - Mickey Mantle got into trouble for endorsing a brand of milk he did not drink.)</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc"> </span><br />
<span class="_Tgc">None of these things would have been possible without Sigmund Freud or his nephew Edward Bernays, father of the field of "public relations" and Woodrow Wilson's WWI propaganda minister. Baseball players had been symbols of health, and once the view had been firmly established, they could have sold anything, even guns to children. And nobody thinks twice about it.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">That's what propaganda does - it normalizes a product, a brand, an idea, an ideology. That's the point of marketing and propaganda of other sorts. You appeal to a person's ego, or a group's ego, and you choose words and symbols that will arouse specific emotions in them, and they come to see that product or idea as right or true to them. Sure, people objected to the baseball player endorsements, but enough just accepted it as normal that it became normal. Babe Ruth didn't buy his kids the guns he sold. It was enough to give the <i>perception</i> that he liked the product.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">This works whether you are sending a seemingly positive message, as in "I like this product," or an inflammatory message - "I hate this product." "I hate this person." "I hate this group." It works by appealing to the ego - that sense of self, including all the hyphenated words that come with it (self-esteem, self-importance, self-awareness, etc.)</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">The flag.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">Is there a more potent piece of propaganda than a flag? The flag inspires feelings of pride, patriotism, and belonging for those who support it. For those who don't? Loathing. Disgust. Evil.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">For most Americans and Westerners, the flag that Austrian failed artist designed is a symbol of the worse evil bestowed upon mankind. The simple flag - red background, white circle, and black swastika (once a symbol of harmony found in ruins of ancient Egypt, Troy, China, India, and elsewhere), became the embodiment of death and destruction.</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc">This was AND STILL IS the worst period in human history. The trick is to keep it from happening again. (Not everyone loathes the swastika flag, and indeed it is making a comeback among a swath of Trump supporters.)</span><br />
<span class="_Tgc"><br /></span>
<span class="_Tgc"><i>"A symbol it really is! In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalist idea, and in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man." - Mein Kampf</i></span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">What is propaganda?</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">Chances are, you have fallen victim to it. Buy these cigarettes. Buy Coca Cola. Buy America.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="_Tgc">Think, people. Think. </span></div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-24640219121312540532016-07-06T22:30:00.002-04:002016-07-06T22:32:24.122-04:00Baseball and Life during Peacetime<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Read the first part of this series <a href="http://baseballchurch.blogspot.com/2016/06/baseball-is-life-during-wartime.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</i><br />
<br />
World War I had been called the Great War and The War to End All Wars, but it was neither great nor did it end war. Instead, it set the world up for the worst war in the history of mankind, one in which unspeakable acts were committed in the name of ideology.<br />
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No one knew it at the time, and things began to return to life as usual, baseball included. Only it wasn't so usual. Following the Black Sox scandal of 1919 (the Reds did not win <i>because</i> of it - they were a good team that could have won regardless), baseball needed a hero who could lead the game into a new decade and leave the past behind. The dead ball era was over as the world became alive again; line drives replaced bullets and home runs replaced bombs. Mustard went on hotdogs instead of eyes. Babe Ruth replaced General Pershing as America's hero. Attendance rose by 50% from the 10's, and America fell in love with baseball all over again.<br />
<br />
The world seemed to have come to terms with itself. Peace and prosperity appeared to be reality. Booze was banned in America but it just made the parties better as they moved underground. It was all a facade, of course. That Austrian corporal with the German Iron Cross, First Class, was contemplating entering politics. He was thirty-something years old and mad at the world - the world being run by "scoundrel Jews," of course. His mindset wasn't unique, however, as the Bavarian rightwing clung to the "stabbed in the back" mythos. Conservatives despised the new democratic republic and the individual freedoms it brought; they longed for a return to the monarchy, the good old days. And there was the defeated Army with nothing to do, minds destroyed by the horrors of the war they had just waged, morale destroyed by the loss and the stipulations of the armistice. Militias sprung up everywhere; the disgruntled Army helped equip them for fear of the rise of socialism. Berlin was briefly occupied by one of these rightwing brigades in March 1920 until a general strike by the trade unions restored the republic. At the same time, a coup overthrew a socialist government in Munich, installing a rightwing regime. This was the climate in Bavaria, one of angry conservatives armed to the teeth, a climate that Iron Cross, First Class found home.<br />
<br />
That was far away from the ballparks of America. While the United States lost about 117,000 troops, Americans never really felt the full effects of the war because it didn't happen here. I suppose it made it easier to get back to living life. Germany had lost 2 million soldiers and 2.5 million civilians while ravaging cities and countryside alike. You have to imagine what it was like, to see your homes and villages destroyed, to see bombed out bridges and burnt up forests, to see your childhood memories demolished and wonder if your country could ever be whole again, if you could ever be you again. Germany's population at the start of the war was 67 million; there was not a German who didn't know dozens of dead by the end of it.<br />
<br />
I think the whole world was in denial. Americans certainly were, getting fake rich and falling under the spell of consumerism. That a game could grow so big and start making so much money was testament to that. But it was always more than a game, wasn't it? It was that pastime that had found its way from Valley Forge to the Civil War to history's worst war, and it was solace and unity and summer and the proverbial return to innocence, if only for a couple of hours a day. While the Giants and the Yankees took turns winning World Series in that decadent decade and using the Middlewestern teams as their own AAAA farm clubs, the haves in the real world were having and having some more and the baseball loving POTUS was promising a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage and then there were no chickens or pots or cars or garages.<br />
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The haves were having and having some more everywhere. That's how communism rose. It's how the German Workers Party rose. As fate would have it, the Army ordered Iron Cross, First Class to attend one of the latter's meetings to investigate. A crank economist who had developed a religious devotion to the idea that speculative capital had caused Germany's economic trouble, calling it "interest slavery," spoke at one of these meetings, where the first seeds of evil of something called National Socialism were sown. The founder, a locksmith by trade, had set up a "Committee of Independent Workmen" to counter the growing popularity of Marxism in the trade unions. Peas in a pod. Both were formed out of contempt for the middle class and the establishment. Both blamed the middle class and the establishment for their troubles and scorned them for their lack of understanding of the social problems of the lower class.<br />
<br />
This is populism.<br />
<br />
With the German variety came an intense hatred for the post-war democratic republic that had been established and the people that were running it. This new German Workers Party was full of misfits who had failed at life, failed to see their own flaws, and blamed everyone else for their problems. They did have a point - the social ills were real and they were often ignored. The haves were having and having some more and then some more after that and many people pretended this wasn't happening or didn't care because they had theirs. But the freaks in the German Workers Party probably couldn't have made it anywhere - a fat, gay Army <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernst-Rohm" target="_blank">captain</a>, a crazy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Drexler" target="_blank">locksmith</a>, a failed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Eckart" target="_blank">playwright</a> whose works had only been performed by patients in a mental hospital, a crank <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gottfried-Feder" target="_blank">economist</a>, and an untalented painter with an Iron Cross, First Class had found each other in the wrong place at the wrong time and the whole world suffered for it.<br />
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Baseball advertising was as old as the Major Leagues, going back to tobacco cards, but it took on a life of its own in the twenties. Babe Ruth sold soda, candy, cigarettes, and guns. Lou Gehrig sold batteries and breakfast cereals. Jimmie Foxx sold bats and lubricants. Owners were coming up with new ways to make money and enticing fans to come to games. But baseball was just going along with a new craze. As <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393" target="_blank">Edward Bernays</a> was telling Americans to buy soap because it was 99% pure and eat bacon for breakfast because it was patriotic and women to smoke because it would give them freedom, that Iron Cross, First Class, was also mastering the art of propaganda.<br />
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<i>To be continued...</i><br />
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<i>(Incidentally, Bernays despised democracy, too, preferring "enlightened despotism." Peas in pods.)</i><br />
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Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-21742812924740718802016-06-16T23:56:00.003-04:002016-06-17T12:48:35.724-04:00Baseball is Life during Wartime<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everything in history has happened because of what happened before it. You, reading this on your laptop or your mobile phone, or if you're older, your PC with a giant monitor, may or may not contemplate how amazing it is that of 6,000 years of recorded human history (<i>recorded</i>, people), we have been able to communicate by distance for less than two hundred years. Coincidentally, that's about the same time baseball has been, well,<i> baseball</i> in America.<br />
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It's no secret that I am enamored with the role baseball has played in our nation's history and am fond of saying George Washington played catch with his troops at Valley Forge and Abe Lincoln watched games played on the White House lawn. (I have written some pretty great stuff about it all that you've never read because I am incapable of finishing anything. I am hoping this little endeavor that I am beginning will change that, because a lot is stake right now in our country and I once again turn to baseball to fix it.)<br />
<br />
The American Civil War was no accident. Slavery was ending as colonialism was ending, and slavery was a product of the Western colonial era. The Civil War was as much a result of a changing global order which saw empires falling as it was a problem with human rights or the Union. This change had a lot to do with the outbreak of World War I, a war in which a young, failed artist from Austria suffered a mustard gas attack by the British and cemented an ideology of Hate. His regiment was in the thick of the fighting all spring and summer of 1918 while the US was fighting its second summer to save Europe from itself. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class that August for capturing 15 British soldiers singlehandedly. Or French, depending on which account you are reading.<br />
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The minor leagues had closed up shop in 1917 but MLB owners kept the majors open. Unlike WWII, despite what they claimed as patriotism, it wasn't for morale for the country. It was pure greed. The US government had pressured them to shut down and let the players contribute to the war effort, but they would not. They were roundly criticized by the public, and they cut travel and shortened the season in 1918 thinking that would appease the critics.<br />
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But the assholes also cut player salaries as a result. Real patriotic.<br />
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The reigning World Series champs White Sox were looking as good as the previous season and the Giants were set to repeat as NL champs. In a perfect world - or even a half decent world - they would have had a rematch.<br />
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On July 1, 1918, the "Work or Fight Order" went into effect, and all draft-eligible men employed in non-essential occupations had to
apply for work that was related to the war or risk being drafted. Playing a game for a living was considered a non-essential occupation. The deadline was extended until September 1 for ballplayers, and then the owners lobbied/paid bribes(probably) to have it extended two more weeks so they could play the World Series, the only one to be played entirely in September. But the players didn't wait. By season's end, each team had lost an average of 15 players due to voluntary enlistment, and both the White Sox and the Giants lost their best players (Shoeless Joe among them.) (775 ballplayers fought in World War I. You can find them all <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Category:World_War_I_Veterans" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
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Instead, the Red Sox played the Cubs in the Fall (Technically Summer) Classic, defeating them in six games as the war in Europe raged on. Babe Ruth - you might have heard of him - was instrumental in the victory, his final year in that uniform. It was the last World Series Boston would win for a very long time, because of the curse, you know. And you know about the Cubs, who had started a curse of their own a decade before.<br />
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A month after the final out, that gas attack took place in the last Battle of Ypres and that young psychopath with the Iron Cross, First Class, was laid up in a hospital bed, unable to see a thing except the warped visions in his head. Germany was losing the war to "invisible foes," who were a "greater danger to the German people than the biggest cannon of the enemy."<br />
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Those "invisible foes," of course, were Jews and Marxists.<br />
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The other soldiers hated the future fascist. "We all cursed him and found him intolerable...There was this white crow among us that didn't go along with us when we damned the war to hell." He'd sit "in the corner of our mess holding his head between his hands in deep contemplation." Then he'd leap up and go on a rant about the invisible foes, scoundrels who cursed the war and wished for its quick end. They were slackers, and who but Jews could be slackers?<br />
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Germany lost the war a month after the attack at Ypres, but they hadn't been defeated by the British or the Americans or the French...Jews had defeated them. Jews had stabbed the country in the back.<br />
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That "stabbed in the back" conspiratorial myth did more than anything else to bring the fall of the Weimer Republic that followed Germany's defeat. It is astounding that this myth was so widespread among the German people. "November criminals," they said.<br />
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The truth is, if the German army hadn't insisted on signing the armistice, Germany could have very easily fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and history would look very different. Maybe not better, probably not worse, but we'll never know, will we? All we can do is learn from what actually happened in the past and work to change it.<br />
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Back in the US, the White Sox, with all their players back, were on their way to another pennant. But we were in the throes of corruption, emboldened by a war victory, feeling invincible, gambling. While Europe was celebrating into oblivion into the next decade, conservative Christians were banning everything they didn't like in the US. One of those was alcohol. Another was black people. Even though they weren't playing in the league at that point, Kennesaw Mountain Landis saw to it that no person of dark skin would play a Major League game until he was long dead and burning in hell. Capitalists made fake fortunes off the working man and then crashed the economy. The twenties were a mess. Everyone thought they could do whatever they wanted even when the law said they couldn't.<br />
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The Roaring Twenties came to an end. So did the Weimer Republic. So, too, did civility.<br />
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And then, darkness set upon us all...<br />
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<i>This is going to be a series. All World War II references come from </i>The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich<i> by William L. Shirer. It is by far the definitive book on the rise and fall of a psychopath. Yes, I do know how to properly cite references. But the Blogger platform has no footnote option.</i><br />
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Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-9259952393512475032016-06-05T19:24:00.000-04:002016-06-05T19:24:01.033-04:00Brunhilda isn't wailing yet...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Watched the Nats-Reds series this weekend with enthusiasm after initial disinterest because the Reds have been so...what's the word? Disappointing isn't it, because we didn't expect much this year. But we expected more than this. Appalling comes to mind. I don't know. It's some kind of negative emotion, but maybe there isn't a word in English for it. However, I got into it the game Friday night when the Reds decided to be a Major League baseball team, then was excited to see them defeat the Nats again on Saturday.<br />
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All it did was make me think irrational thoughts about potentially maybe possibly recovering enough to compete for the Wild Card. Because the offense is good. Half of the offense won two division titles and appeared in three post seasons in the last five years. Sure, we lost our All Star catcher to injury and third baseman to trade, but Suarez can hit and Duvall has surprised everyone and the team can score runs.<br />
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Of course, the rotation is at best questionable, but Homer is making his way back and Desclafani will be pitching soon and Stephenson already has an MLB W under his belt. If Finnegan can figure out how to put more pitches over the plate, he'll be serviceable if not good.<br />
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But the Reds' front office threw in the towel before the season ever began and we've been stuck with this shitshow of a bullpen, a revolving door of future DFAs and guys who have no business wearing MLB jerseys anywhere other than the stands. It is no exaggeration to say this is the worst Reds bullpen I have every witnessed. Prove me wrong with your fancy numbers. You can't. The bullpen ERA is OVER SIX.<br />
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You know, you can "rebuild" and still put a competitive team on the field.<br />
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Anyway, there's always a part of me with irrational hope no matter how bleak things look. Don't forget that when I seem like the most negative of Nancys.</div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-46243202106655023722016-05-15T22:01:00.001-04:002016-05-15T22:14:19.229-04:00Dear Dan Haren<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I read <a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dan-haren-retirement-20160515-story.html" target="_blank">this article</a> about you yesterday and for some reason woke up this morning with it on my mind. I had this post all written out in my head while I was lying there in the pre-coffee hours but wonder if I'll be able to put it into writing now that I've migrated to the couch, where I will be watching baseball in a few minutes while the winds of March blow outside on this May day. This post really isn't to you or about you, but I feel it could help the reader if I wrote it as if I were speaking to a real person. Or maybe it just helps me write it.<br />
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I guess the article resonated with me because I know what it's like to deal with anxiety. Anxiety makes me procrastinate to the point where sometimes I don't do things that must be done at all. I won't take drugs for it because I know that drugs don't fix the root of the problem, which is the way we live our lives in American society, and society seems so unwilling to change its unsustainable lifestyle that we will surely meet our destruction before we deal with our country's worsening mental health epidemic.<br />
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I work in an uncelebrated and oft criticized field that doesn't get the spotlight of sports, though what we do is more important than what you did for a living, given that we are helping people who suffer from war and oppression. The only time we get the spotlight is when there is a foreign aid corruption scandal. Then it's usually said that all NGOs have too much overhead, as if us human rights workers are supposed to work for free and not earn a living. We tend to live in big cities where the organizations are located and where the cost of living should be criminal, so we're usually living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes deciding which bill to pay late each month, at least until we have put in enough years for our 3% cost of living raises to add up to something useful. Most of you MLB ballplayers have no concept of what that is like, or you forget. You yourself put so much pressure on yourself because you thought quitting and losing out on another $15 million put your family at risk. That is offensive to those who work their asses off in industries that are not valued as sports are in this country. As a society, our values are warped. But I get that you guys work your asses off, too, and you felt like you earned it. For your industry, you did.<br />
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I quit once. I had the same thoughts as you did. I had quit in my head many times and then one day when the the stress of barely scraping by had finally gotten to me, I took my last paycheck and went to live in the cheapest European country I could find - Bulgaria - for a few months just to get away from it all. I think the suffering of people had overtaken my unconscious mind. I thought I would get some writing done, maybe publish a book, come back with a fresh perspective, but I came back and had trouble finding a job because in my field, it's not necessarily about talent. It's about who you know, like it is in many other industries. I had yet to learn that so I kept applying for jobs without using the connections I had made. Then one day, out of the blue, when depression had set up permanent residence in my psyche, one of those connections offered me a job, and I started on a journey that opened my eyes to the real world in a way I could never have known sitting behind a desk in our nation's capital. Your wife told you to "use perspective" and "there is more to life than baseball." Boy, is she right.<br />
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I spent a year over the course of two years living in Beirut. I felt like I was living in the center of the news. You see, those people live every day with the stress of the threat of destruction. People my age had grown up with the bullets and bombs of the world consuming all that was good in their lives. People refer to it as the "Lebanese Civil War," but it was a World War fought in a tiny country between various Lebanese militias, the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Syrians, the Saudis, the Russians, and us Americans.<br />
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While you and I were playing baseball and softball at age 14, my friend was driving a makeshift ambulance with a group of his friends to help those blown up by car bombs or airstrikes. Some of my first memories of the world outside the United States were about news of hostages and the bombings of our embassy and the Marine barracks. But those things happened so far away from my Ohio suburban home that it was as if they weren't real. They weren't real until I went there two decades later, and I saw the vestiges of war, bombed out buildings, bullet holes, and the psychological scars of a society that had experienced the apocalypse.<br />
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The fifteen year war ended in 1990, but it wasn't truly over. There were more bombs and assassinations and the militias still rule today. Sometimes it takes a year for them to put together a government. They haven't had a president for - what is it, three years now? They ran out of landfill room, so trash has been piling up for a year and counting. Israel periodically comes and bombs them. Hezbollah is the most powerful political party. One fifth of the country are refugees from Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. ISIS keeps trying to come in. The Syrians are attempting to wipe themselves out next door, a war that sometimes spills over the officially defined borders into Lebanese territory. They aren't even allowed to attend their league's soccer games for fear of militia violence, so they can only watch on TV. Imagine playing to empty ballparks every single day. These are the realities of life in Lebanon and too many other places on this planet. But people keep pushing on.<br />
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Here in America, we have no concept of war. As most WWII vets have passed, few of us has suffered war on American soil, which is a reason 9/11 was overwhelmingly traumatic for many people. We glorify our soldiers, unaware of the reality of what military life entails or what it means to "defend the country" or why we are even fighting the wars in the first place. Most Americans don't serve, so they are ripe targets for military propaganda. Hell, many MLB ballplayers won't even serve their country by playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Patriotism is waving a flag, clapping for troops, and saying a pledge of allegiance that was originally created as a marketing gimmick. The reality is that most soldiers aren't heroes, the wars are unjust, the DOD spends billions on propaganda that is working, and military life is often mundane. So you aren't alone in lack of perspective. It's practically the American Way.<br />
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The hero worship is, as you are well aware, not confined to the military. Our obsession with sports figures and celebrities is unhealthy at best. We expect you to be machines. You aren't human. We don't know you personally and it is rare to have any interaction with you at all, so what we see on the field or in the newspaper is all we have to go on. I am one who probably called you a whiner for not accepting the trade to the Marlins, and I apologize for that. I'm really trying to be nicer on social media. The climate is just so toxic that it is hard sometimes, as it gets into your unconscious and you don't even realize your tone is too sharp or too bitter. Then there's all the social polarization and the intentional wedge driving by politicians, and people fall in line with the propaganda, and it is just impossible to filter out all that negativity. It's like virtual liver cirrhosis - the poison has overwhelmed and destroyed our filtering system.<br />
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But anxiety is a real thing, and you can "have perspective" rationally while your insides are torn up. Those who have never experienced it or have never had a panic attack just don't get it. It's not something you can control, and it can happen to you even if you're sitting on your couch doing nothing. I've read a great deal about psychology, some on my own and some for university work. While studying in Europe, I took a course that focused on the psychology of adolescents who grew up in traumatic circumstances, largely revolving around World War II. We went to Terezenstadt near Prague, which was considered a "model" concentration camp by the Nazis who showed it off to international groups like the Red Cross to show they treated their prisoners "well." You should have seen some of the artwork drawn by the children they had on display. The human mind is a fragile thing, and for all our conscious thoughts, there are unconscious influences.<br />
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But you don't have to experience something as horrific as a concentration camp for your mind to mess you up. Sigmund Freud did groundbreaking work in the field of psychoanalysis, even though he was wrong on some things. Carl Jung was his student and became his equal. They both studied the unconscious mind and discovered that a lot of our conscious problems stem from an inability to reconcile them with our unconscious. Science <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120616145531.htm" target="_blank">is showing</a> that anxiety stems from the unconscious mind and that until we are able to have more balance in our lives and resolve the conflict between the conscious and unconscious, we will continue to suffer from it, and no amount of talk about perspective will fix that. But we must strive for that balance.<br />
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I don't know if you have seen a therapist but s/he'd probably tell you something that happened in your youth is responsible for the anxiety. I think about this a lot and think of the family turmoil in my development years and am pretty sure my anxiety is rooted in that, and despite the fact that I was the best student in my class growing up and the best athlete, I never feel adequate enough in my professional life. I think my experiences in Lebanon helped me to bring some of the
unconscious concerns to my consciousness, and I've learned to take
control of some of that anxiety. But I could never go on TV, even though I have the expertise to talk about certain issues, and I have a hard time participating in meetings or talking on the phone unless I have spent hours preparing for it. I feel uncomfortable in social situations, which just gets worse as I get older. I used to post to this blog every day, but then the internet got mean and I lost my desire to write. I moved to short memory Twitter and racked up a decent number of followers, but like you I found the environment difficult. Sometimes I'll call someone out on Twitter for being a total garbage human being, then won't check my mentions for days for fear of the reply. I usually apologize if I am in the wrong, but that's not enough for some people. We shouldn't - we <i>can't</i> - let people get away with being awful people. We can't let rotten individuals throw our country in the trash. As Dr. King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."<br />
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I liked the LA Times article, because it didn't try to glorify you, or pity you, or make us feel any sort of manufactured emotion. It was just a normal human story, and the writer didn't Hollywood it. (Kind of ironic, given the paper.) I think writers often start off with good intentions but get lost in the pressure to reach readers or get stuck on the rules of journalism school textbooks. I'm sure the pressure of deadlines hurts the work, too. There is pressure in every job and to be honest, sportswriters probably receive more negative criticism than struggling ballplayers because they are more accessible in the Internet Age and they tend to be viewed as mouthpieces for the teams they cover, as if they are the ones making the decisions. Some of the criticism is warranted as they spew cliches and avoid controversial topics for fear of losing access, but a lot of negativity comes from people who can barely put together a coherent sentence but feel their "opinions" are of the same value as anyone else's. That probably stems from our culture of giving everyone a participation trophy so no one's feelings are hurt and the emphasis on standardized tests in our schools that inhibits the development of critical thinking skills. We should fix that, too.<br />
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I think more of us are becoming aware of the toxins in our society, and I hope we can find the political will to change the situation before it consumes us. What we see on Twitter is a microcosm for greater societal problems. The poisonous discourse has grown to a level that is threatening to destroy this country, as mass shootings become normalized, violence plagues our political gatherings, and a demagogue rises to power on the backs of bigotry and hatred. I can actually imagine the things people said to you, because I see the vitriol every day. These are probably unconscious feelings of inadequacy manifesting themselves in the form of what can only be called "meanness." We shouldn't accept that.<br />
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So here I am, several baseball games from when I began this post, and I'm still not entirely sure why the article was on my mind this morning. The point is perspective, I think. It seems you've found it. Plenty of things to do in life. Choose to do good and some of that anxiety will be relieved. I wish I had more to offer you, some advice, an opportunity, anything, really. I'm still trying to figure things out for myself, still wondering why so many people are awful, why meanness is acceptable, why our country seems unwilling to do anything about its problems except make them worse. Good luck to you.<br />
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Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-77697721303366310142016-05-12T11:53:00.001-04:002016-05-12T11:53:52.594-04:00oh hey, look, there's an app for this<p dir="ltr">i really have no excuse not to post anymore.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I was at the Scherzer game last night. Twenty K's. I've been to Game 5 of the 2002 World Series, Randy Johnson's 300th win, and the Nationals Opening Day for the return of baseball to DC. This was up there with those games.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I left my seat once the entire game. There seemed to be less of that up and down stuff so typical of fans at Nats Park once Scherzer hit 15 strikeouts. Fewer fans left the game early, too, although some still did. Soulless creatures, those folks.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The oddest thing about the game was that the scoreboard operators never put "20 strikeouts" on the board. The outfield fence scoreboard had "kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk" but you'd think they'd put something up immediately. Even after the game they flashed "Nats win" as if this were just another ordinary game. Five times in history, folks. Seems like the scoreboard is so over programmed that there's no room for spontaneity. Style over substance.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Also, I should mention that the all beef hotdogs are far superior to Nats dogs.</p>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21666786.post-39799359761424774562016-05-10T00:16:00.000-04:002016-05-10T00:34:09.546-04:00No joy in Mudville<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Part 1<br />
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I wanted to write something about baseball but I'm sort of out of words for it. But I'll try.<br />
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I started this blog when I was still in my twenties and as I was going back through some of the old posts looking for a particular one on Bonds, I thought how fun I had maintaining it and what unbridled passion I felt. That's your twenties, though. If you do it right, anyway.<br />
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I remember our after work happy hours, arguing about politics and world affairs and thinking we all could save the world with our own naive ideas. They were naive, but they were informed, at least. You can't really say the same for some of the people who open their mouths today. I mean, there are people who think that you can just print money and your country will be ok. Ever heard of Weimer Republic? Probably not. Look it up to find out why you can't just print money.<br />
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Anyway, when blogging first started, there was a community and people wrote on blogs because they were passionate about whatever they were writing about. Your blog was ranked based on links to it and there wasn't money involved. It wasn't who paid the most that got the readers; it was who wrote the best. Because you needed links, you visited others' sites and formed communities where you conversed about your shared interests. This was fun, back when people who knew how to write were the ones on the internet and the mouthbreathers were trying to find the computer's on switch. Hard to believe it was a decade ago, but time flies when you throw a clock through a window.<br />
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The Reds were awful at that time, but not so often that you couldn't muster hope until about August each year. The offense was good. Home runs were sailing into the incandescent summer evenings under the ballpark lights and we had yet to raise a generation that had not known a Reds World Series championship.<br />
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I didn't watch many Reds games last year because my internet didn't work correctly and I was stuck in a Comcast contract and they refused to acknowledge that it didn't work. Oh, and the team was so awful and I was so disappointed that I think that my heart would have ripped to shreds. I think back to only ten years ago and no corporation would have been able to get away with robbing someone like that, but that was before Citizens United and United States citizens decided it was ok to give control of their lives to corporations. Granted, the internet was not as fast and MLB.TV was not in HD but you know what? It worked. (It took us almost a year and Comcast finally fixed the problem so I can watch this year.) There was no Facebook to control what content we see and Google was giving out email addresses by invitation only and the internet was enjoyable. We had fun. I made stupid photoshops like this:<br />
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We were civil to each other. We had blogger "roundtables." We had something called "blogrolls," and they were as important as the blog itself. No one got paid to do anything. No one put ads on their blogs.<br />
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What happened was this: Google. It got to be that you had to spend more time promoting your blog, focusing on search engine optimization, paying for social media ads, and using analytics than you did actually writing the content. Oh, and Americans' attention spans dropped four seconds in the span of a decade thanks to social media and they couldn't read anymore. And the incivility. Oh, the incivility.<br />
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Bryce Harper has the unbridled passion of a twenty-something. Worse, a young twenty-something who has grown up knowing only one thing in life: baseball. He's the youngest guy to every win an MVP. And when his mouth is shut, he's fun to watch.<br />
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But then it opens.<br />
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Tonight he may have done the worst thing he's ever done, worse than even blowing the kiss at the pitcher after he hit a minor league home run. While his team was celebrating a walk off home run, he was yelling "fuck you" at the ump for throwing him out of the game a batter earlier. He wasn't even batting. He was in the dugout. Getting thrown out of a tie game for yelling at the ump is bad enough, but your team is celebrating a walk off win and you have to seek out the ump to yell profanities at him?<br />
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This is the Bryce Harper that is not fun to watch, the one that people hate.<br />
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Worse? Watching people defend this behavior or get their Bryce Harper Underoos in bunches when they hear criticism of it, incapable of comprehending why what he did was wrong.<br />
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Your team just won. You don't go seeking out vengeance. You overshadowed the heroics of a teammate who doesn't get much of a spotlight. It was a classless act, absolute garbage. It wasn't passion. It was narcissism. He's too full of himself to even celebrate with his teammates. <br />
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He'll make a perfect Yankee.<br />
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But in our narcissistic age, I guess being a dick of a teammate is A-OK. It's "fun." Concepts as professionalism or sportsmanship are outdated, amirite? Let's just drag every bit of decency through the mud.<br />
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There is a reason people are supporting a politician (yes, he's a politician despite beliefs to the contrary) who runs on a slogan "Make America Great Again." Because we have lost something (though not the things he stands for, not at all, but the message resonates for a reason.) People don't quite understand what has been lost, but they sense it is something big. The loss of civility is "huge," and decency, and respect. It's not kids these days. It's everyone. Talking about baseball online is not fun anymore. We can't talk to each other without dragging our opponents through the mud. <br />
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There is no joy in Mudville.<br />
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So right back at you, Harper. Grow up. And grow up, internet.</div>
Cathiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07291479913130967235noreply@blogger.com0