Baseball

In an effort to remain relevant and keep its fan base, I believe Major League Baseball is losing the appeal that, at one time, made it America’s game.

The movie “A Field of Dreams” captured the essence of the sport in the lines spoken by James Earl Jones as he played Terence Mann:

“Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Perhaps it is unavoidable, like progress.  Our society changes, attitudes change, and in pursuit of that change, time compresses, while the technology of change inundates us.

 We no longer play the game by feel, it is all about analytics, as captured in the movie Money Ball, about the Oakland Athletics and their GM Billy Bean.  At the end of the movie John Henry, the (then) new owner, of the Boston Red Sox offers Bean a job as GM with the Red Sox by pointing out the A’s came one win short of getting to the World Series when they lost to the New York Yankees, but they (the A’s) spent about $200K per win while the Yankees spent about $10M.  The hard-fiscal fact of a new approach did not escape John Henry and is probably directly responsible for the Sox breaking the curse of the Bambino in 2004.

Today, we see teams shifting players from their historical fielding positions to where analytics tell them the batter will most likely hit the ball.  As far as I can tell, so far batters have not figured out how to change to counter this move.  The solutions seem obvious to a fan but apparently are not to the players or coaches.

We are moving away from the pastoral game lionized in “A Field of Dreams” into the Xs and Os of football.  With that note, I will leave you with this video by the late George Carlin.

Independence Day 2019

So, let’s talk about Independence Day!

  It first occurred on an oppressively hot and humid summer day in the city of Philadelphia, in the colony of Pennsylvania.  Within the shuttered confines of the Pennsylvania State House delegates from the 13 English Colonies met to debate the course of action in response to what they saw as an increasingly oppressive English rule.  By the way, oppressive English rule seemed to be the standard of the day.  Just ask the Scots and the Irish if there is a question on this.

Their response turned the world upside down and set the colonies on a path, which would result in the formation of our current form of government some 13-years later.  Even the most visionary of people could not grasp what this small nation of independent thinkers and individualists would grow to become.

It seems to me, each of the following generations has confronted, to one extent or another, the realities of life in a dangerous world.  Their choices shaped the nation, for better or worse, for the subsequent generations.  The question we wrestle with today is not unlike the question before those men who represented their friends, neighbors, and the colonies in 1776.  Simply stated it is “should we continue as we are, or should we change to an unknown?”

Fortunately, the representatives present at the establishment of our current government put in place a vehicle capable of change and adaptation to the needs of subsequent generations, but that is for another day.  Today, I would like to consider the words of our Independence for just a minute.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

Those who believe this nation to be irreparably racist point out even as we said all men were created equal we supported and accepted slavery.  That is absolutely true, but as we talk of the ideal we strive for, does the fact we failed at our initial declaration make the ideal wrong or not self-evident to those who would seek the truth of the nature of man?

The founders shared a reasonably common set of religious beliefs based on their Christianity.  They recognized “unalienable rights” must come from a power greater than the government, for if those rights come only from the government then the government has the ability to take them away.  As we abandon our faith, the question becomes; is any right inalienable?  We see in today’s political debates demands for this or that right from some group, at the same time they oppose other groups seeking their own rights.  If you doubt this – you need only look at the demands of the LGBTQ coalition and their attacks on the organized Christian faiths, or businesses that have publicly stated their support for the faith.

Unfortunately, it appears we are abandoning the ideas of our founders regarding unalienable rights, and now look to the rights we want our government to provide either through taxation or indebtedness.  Along the way we see increasing rejection of some of the safeguards, the original citizens thought to be important.  For example, we see in the censorship of online speech a growing belief by some they have the right to only allow speech they agree with.  This follows the social trend to classify speech we don’t like as “hate” and clearly it is wrong to allow hate, isn’t it?  The larger question for the social media corporations is are they public spaces worthy of government protection, or are they politically aligned corporations subject to government regulation?  There is growing evidence they are the latter, with their corporate political bias forming an inherent sense of entitlement to stop speech they disagree with while fostering ideas they support.  This has long been a position of centralized governments as they controlled the thoughts and ideas of the masses to ensure the stability of the government.

Isn't it humorous for the left to hold as an example of courage a man standing against the overwhelming force of an authoritarian government, as seen in the picture of tanks in Tiananmen Square, when as a group they are more interested in growing the power of the government to limit the freedoms we’ve historically cherished?

In the Congressional hearings on whether to regulate the huge internet companies (6/26/19), Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), notes the hypocrisy of Google® executives in their internal communication released through a Project Veritas exposé.  They are willing to label and censor conservative voices as Nazis without consideration of the hate they are invoking in their own speech.  Of course, in these days where absolutely everything becomes a partisan issue, the Democrats in the hearing are not at all concerned with how the internet is controlled as long as it is controlled by people who agree with their politics.

But let's put that aside for today and ask a more important question.
The social issue, which seems to be at the forefront of today’s celebrations is does this nation have either a right or desire to remain a sovereign nation governed by law or does it wish to open its borders to allow unrestricted access to all the benefits previous administrations had limited to actual citizens?  That is the $64,000 question for this independence day.

The Party of Free

The Democratic Party’s Presidential candidates are almost tripping over themselves with promises of free stuff for the people.  This week Bernie has come up with a plan to tax investors (individuals and investment fund managers both large and small) so they can offer “free” education to those who want it, eliminating the problem of student debt.  Of course, Bernie doesn’t frame the tax as something paid by the average person, it will be paid by all those “greedy guys” on Wall Street.

To support him, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has weighed in to show how someone was accepted to her “dream college” but actually had to pay for it herself, and now has about $240,000 in student debt.

These two positions by prominent advocates for socialism raise two questions for me.  The first, why should someone go to college and incur debt with no plan to repay it?  The second, what happens to individual incentive when everything is free?

President Eisenhower, in his Fair Well address to the nation, warned of the Military-Industrial complex we had created with World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War and how their growing power was influencing government spending.  I think the same could be said for the Education is Mandatory Complex.  The cost of secondary education in the US has far outpaced the inflation rate due to the growth of colleges into mega-institutions of political indoctrination.   

When I graduated from high school, my mother had conditioned me that I would go to college for the better life it offered.  I wanted to be a flyer in the Air Force and to get to that point I needed a college degree, so both Mom and I had mutually supported goals.  At the time I went, there were tens of thousands of young men who were going for other reasons, many young men went to avoid the draft and the likelihood of war in Vietnam, others went to find themselves, still, others just to get away from home.  All were promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The colleges offered the opportunity for good jobs and career advancement over peers who had not gone.  That was pretty much a lie then, and it remains so now.  What the right colleges offered was tremendous networking opportunities, and an entryway to further education if you chose.

Fortunately for me, when I went to school the cost of even a private college like I attended was still within the realm of affordability.  I chose a path that got me through and commissioned into the Air Force so I guess you could say I was a success.  But I know several friends who spent four to six years hiding from the draft only to leave and find work as machinists, landscapers, and woodworkers.  Was college really that important to what they wanted for their careers?  By the way, does everyone have a career or do most just have jobs?

Today we have a bloated industry full of self-righteous professionals making six-figure salaries while telling us they are invaluable and we, the rest of the nation, should pay our fair share so they can continue to grow their mega-universities.  Are their arguments all that different than the televangelists who promise God’s salvation if we would just send them a monthly donation of say $50?

Should I feel bad that a girl went to her “dream university” when her parents couldn’t afford it, and her performance didn’t warrant any scholarship offers?  Sorry, I don’t.  The reality: there is a cost to making bad choices, outrageous student debt seems to be one of those costs.

Now let’s talk about what happens to human incentive when everything is free.  First and foremost, who can point out a successful human endeavor that was accomplished without a cost?  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

While I’m waiting I’ll just point out that free housing to the homeless has not solved homelessness.  Free money to the poor has not, for the most part, brought them out of poverty.  Free K-12 education has not eliminated illiteracy.  All the social safety nets we’ve built in this country has not eliminated crime.  Grand (free) mental institutions to house the insane has not made the problems of insanity less problematic.  Oh yes, none of these free things were actually free.  Someone had to pay for them, who was that again?

A story from my childhood education seems relevant here.

There once was a poor immigrant who arrived in America virtually penniless.  He got a job rowing boat in New York City.  He scrimped and saved his meager salary until he could buy his own rowboat to carry people between Manhattan and Staten Island.  It’s a rather long story but it ends with his becoming one of the richest men in the world.  To me, that is the American Dream.  Not the idea that people with money should give it to people who don’t so they can have free stuff.

I Wonder

In an industry composed almost exclusively of progressive liberals how many of their products are actually made to depict a vision of tolerance and love they so fondly talk about?
How many major studio films, made by those who would relegate the Second Amendment to the dust bin of American rights are actually made that don't glorify the use of "military-grade" weapons.
How many actors actually practice the values they decry the average American no longer has?
How many producers actually consider the values of the humans they employ?
And how many industry insiders actually hold themselves to the same standards they demand of others?
I am curious.

What Could Have Been

We will never know if the person who would find the cure for childhood cancer was killed by a woman who didn’t want it, but we will always live with that question, what could have been?

Was a peacemaker who would have found a way to end all war, killed by a doctor who felt there was too much pain in the world?  Perhaps.

Was the scientist whose discovery of a way to end pollution -- disposed of by people who seek to make life better for those who didn’t want to raise a child?  We will never know.

Was the person who, through the pain of their youth but the strength of their character, grew to complete the legacy of Martin Luther King and end racial bigotry disposed of in the biohazardous waste of an abortion clinic?  Maybe.

How easy it is to dispose of life, to ignore the unrealized potential lost to the world, to justify a belief that life is only worth protecting if it will be what we think it should be.

Have we as a society realized all the great things abortion of the unwanted was to bring us?  Have we eliminated poverty or improved the quality of lives for those who now deal with the aftermath?  Is society richer for the loss of those human beings, or is it poorer?  Who can tell me, what have we gained and what have we lost? 

It's a Mystery.

I am a little confused by the DNC primary process.  There is nothing in their policies, public statements, or candidates to suggest they are at all interested in what middle America (the flyover states) have to say.  Why then do they hold their earliest primaries there? 
Wouldn't it be more cost effective to just divide NY, MA, CA, WA, and OR into like 50 different districts and concentrate the primaries there and then tell everyone else how it turned out?

Everyone is an Expert

I’ve finally grown up enough to let the stupidity of Facebook wash past me, much like standing in Times Square and watching the mass of humanity move along without getting caught up in their swell.  I think the one thing that amuses the hell out of me is how everyone from a machinist in Arkansas, to a housewife in New York, have become experts in Diplomacy, Economics, Immigration and Theology.

Of course, most of their expertise comes from MSNBC so you know it’s Ph.D. quality stuff.

For instance, this week I was told how the Mexican Tariffs would hurt every single American.  This was just before it was announced Mexico was meeting with the Trump administration to address the immigration problem on the southern border.

Again, reading the comments I am convinced now there really aren’t any immigration problems and God is opposed to walls because they had walls around Jericho and Joshua was able to knock them down with a Ram’s horn.

Of course, pushing the MSNBC storylines is okay.  It is only pointing out the opposing views that get you in trouble with FB.