A Letter To My Publisher
Sometimes it’s hard to reach up to that stirrup, but I believe I’m ready to get back in the saddle. Of course, it helps that pitchers and catchers report Feb. 17! Early this week I came across the Winter League Championships from Margarita Island on MLB-TV. Gawd, I needed to hear the crack of the bat as much as Barry Bonds needed his human growth concoctions. To paraphrase one Count Dracula of Transylvania, “Children of the diamond… what sweet music they make.”
Dear Leon –
Sometimes it’s hard to reach up to that stirrup, but I believe I’m ready to get back in the saddle.
Of course, it helps that pitchers and catchers report Feb. 17!
Early this week I came across the Winter League Championships from Margarita Island on MLB-TV. Gawd, I needed to hear the crack of the bat as much as Barry Bonds needed his human growth concoctions. To paraphrase one Count Dracula of Transylvania, “Children of the diamond… what sweet music they make.”
It was great to watch some live, major league-level baseball. I’ve caught parts of games involving Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Mexico. There have been bona fide pitchers’ duels; prodigious home runs (one to center that I didn’t think was ever going to land); lightning on the base paths; and incredible double plays…
For instance: Bases loaded and one out; Jason Simontacchi on the mound for Venezuela with a 4-0 lead over Puerto Rico. A bloop fly to center could score two, but the center fielder, running in, catches it on one bounce. Without missing a beat, he notices the runner on first hasn’t moved, and tosses to second for a force.
The shortstop takes a quick look around, sees the lead runner only a couple of steps off third, and throws home. The catcher tags the guy out by at least four steps. 7-6-2 DP – inning over, threat ended.
Watching these games has been a great mind-clearing escape; it’s easy to figure why so many players in the Bigs come from this part of the planet.
Aah, baseball, the nectar of life… I hope there’s more on today! (After this, I’ll have to wait until March 6 for live baseball — the first televised Cubs’ spring training game.)
Superbowl… Bah! Humbug! That overblown tribute to the corporate brainwashing of America is nothing but Pavlov’s experiment in hyperdrive!
As for the weather of late, although it got brutally cold for a few days, we hadn’t had any snow in several weeks. Still, even though we had some serious rainfalls, there was so much accumulated snow that not all of it washed away. Overnight we got a dusting of powder, but nothing that would increase my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
Earlier this week I went to a meet-and-greet for my friend, Dr. David Gill, who’s running for Congress again (you may remember my column about his wife dying of cancer in 2007 at 42). After taking 2008 off to rebuild his life, a grassroots effort is now picking up steam to unseat the incumbent this November and send David to Washington in 2011. It was good to schmooze with like-minded people at a Democratic cabal – kind of restored my faith in the American voter.
Since being on my self-imposed hiatus, I’ve come up with a couple of earth-shaking questions that require asking:
Why does my cat poop on the floor? She started doing so about six months ago.
The vet doesn’t have an answer; he’s as perplexed as I am. One of his suggestions was to add a box, but she regularly misses it (within two feet). We even added a third box, so she now ignores all three. Fortunately, her avoidance of the boxes doesn’t include pee…
What’s up with idiot drivers who refuse to engage their turn signals? Jees, it takes soooo much effort to flip that lever up or down.
Along the same line, why is it people stop in the thru lane to wait for oncoming traffic to clear when on their left there’s a clearly marked turn lane sitting unused!?
(One possible answer is that oncoming traffic will not honor the turn lane. I was in one the other evening when a car came barreling toward me straddling the middle of the street, forcing me to swerve right to avoid a head-on crash.)
Why do the editors of Politico.com allow blatantly racist comments from individuals who continually refer to Barack Obama as “the negro president” to go unchallenged?
Why is it a supermarket chain always begins its sales on Thursdays, yet sends out coupons that don’t take effect until Friday?
In what country did the “Gang of Five” grow up? You know who I mean — those Right-wing Federalist elitist prigs within the Supreme Court whose activist opinions erode our Constitution by trampling the rights of the common man in favor of corporate entities.
Why is English as spoken by many British people mostly unintelligible?
Why won’t Congressional Democrats just tell the Republican minority to sit down and shut up while they take care of the Nation’s business?
Why didn’t my parents leave me at least one heirloom valuable enough to lift (or at least help subsidize) my family out of interminable debt?
Why must I remain mired in Illinois, where the weather sucks and political options are mostly worse?
In the Land of Lincoln, Stevenson, Dirksen, (Paul) Simon, and Obama, how did we cultivate such pathetic politicians?
Did you know that paleontologists now figure that dinosaurs may have been multi-colored, not grayish-green and black, as has always been assumed?
One final thought: President Obama was 100% correct when he suggested to Congressional Democrats that they turn off CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, stop listening to the pundits, and start connecting with the people.
The 24-hour newschannel has become the schmutz that’s poisoning America’s font of reason. It takes no more than five minutes tuned into any of them to realize they offer little in the way of news and far too much opinion and speculation.
For the past six months or so I’ve avoided the mainstream media like the plague it is, and quite frankly I don’t miss the angst that comes from all that bullshit.
Want news? Tune to the BBC.
You can get your opinion fix right here.
O, fercrissake, now the snow is coming down like this is the Northwest Territories. Crap!
Shalom.
(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator. A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast. Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)
