SPRING/SUMMER 2020 AND BASEBALL

Oh my how the year 2020 just does not seem right.  Now we are all looking for some normalcy to return and the biggest thing that can return us back to a normal summer is baseball.

The meme showed up on my Facebook feed a few days ago.  It was simple enough but carried a message that usually ends during the first weekend of April every year.  Here is what it looked like:

This was placed on Facebook by my cousin Dawn.  Dawn lives in St. Louis (which you think would be bad enough) and she carries on the tradition of the rivalry between the Cardinals of St. Louis and the Cubs of Chicago.  It is all in good fun and we each have a laugh at each others expense every baseball season.  At the same time we do play nice when at the end of the season one of the two clubs are in the play-offs.  This means I play nice a lot more often than Dawn does because chances are the Cardinals are in the play-offs three years for every one year that the Cubs make the post season ... and that is being conservative.

However, Dawn did show a lot of class in 2016 when the Cubs finally won the World Series for the first time in over a hundred years.  I received a pair of socks that proclaimed the Cubs as World Series Champions.  I always pull for the Cardinals during post season as the represent the state of Missouri in a very fine and classy manner.

This year has been different though.  Thanks to a virus that has the American economy shut down, there is not any baseball.  If Tom Hanks theory of "There's no crying in baseball" holds true, then there is a lot of crying around the thirty ballparks that serve as home to the thirty clubs because there is no baseball.

Dawn's meme was correct, if not slanted, as we begin to see the first of May approaching without a single ballgame being played.  Even spring training was cut short.  All major league sports are suspended for an undetermined amount of time.  I am just thankful that the Chiefs were able to get that Super Bowl victory and the Blues won the Stanley cup before things went completely bonkers in the sports world.

How many of us have ever had the thought cross our mind of there being no sports.  Chances are that if we did think that thought it would be for a positive outcome. Well, folks here we stand, absolutely no competitive sports being played around the world.  There is not any soccer.  There are no auto races anywhere from local Saturday night dirt races on up to NASCAR, Indy and Formula 1 racing.  There is not a golf tourney every weekend.  We did not have "March Madness" for college basketball and the college softball and baseball teams did not even make it though half a season and so there was not a College World Series.

The televised sports networks do not know what to show.  They spent a week showing the old "Home Run Derby" show from the late 50's to early 60's.  After 3 or 4 hours of that it is snooze time.  I have taken to watching Full baseball games from previous years from both the regular seasons as well as some of the old World Series classic games.  I watched a game the other day from a couple of decades ago where the Phillies beat the Cubs 23-22.  Chances are we would not have seen a game like that this season.  I have watched Bob Gibson pitch the first game of the 1968 World Series, a pitching masterpiece,  again.  It has been awhile since I have even saw highlights of that game.

Now the question is starting to bug me about when the Major League baseball season finally gets underway?  What will it look like when it does.  It could be close to the All-Star break before they even start the season.  Will there be a Kentucky Derby this year?  An Indianapolis 500?

Let's face it though.  The biggest thing missing this summer is baseball.  From the 7 year olds playing t-ball all the way to the major leagues.  It is not around and we miss it.  You might not want to admit that you do, but I have a feeling that somewhere deep down you feel its absence.

We drive through the neighborhood past ball field complexes that are usually filled with kids of all ages in filthy uniforms drinking a post game coke yet now the parking lots at the fields are empty.  The glow over the houses from the lights at the ball fields every  night is now dark.  The wiffleball games in the middle of the street joining all the neighborhood kids into a fun time of socialization are not to be found.

I Googled baseball 2020 and there is now a passionate discussion on whether to go back to 1960 when the season was only 154 or try to squeeze in the full 162 game season

I mean, is this discussion even needed?  Are we missing baseball so much that the only baseball arguments that are being made is whether to eight fewer games than normal?  This is sad indeed.

I read an article proposing that Major League Baseball commence in empty stadiums.  Not the usual regular season stadiums though, like Fenway, Wrigley or Yankee, but rather in the teams spring training stadiums.  Empty spring training stadiums.  This way the teams would not have to fly all over the country but a short drive around Arizona or Florida to play the game.  The problem with this idea, of course, is that between Florida and Arizona. the leagues intertwine terribly.  We would have a one season realignment of baseball with the champions from Florida playing the champions from Arizona is a World Series played in, oh I don't know, Midland, Texas maybe?

I could probably handle all of that but there is one thing that could change the face of baseball for a very long time.  If this "Florida/Arizona" model is accepted this year, what happens to the designated hitter rule?  You might smirk at this but it is a huge question.  For REAL baseball fans, the designated hitter was what George Steinbrenner sold his soul to the devil for.  He couldn't make the deal for both leagues but he got it in place in the American League.  A Faustian type conspiracy that would bring the Yankees a few more World Series titles, plenty of more post season appearances and the added bonus of not having to watch your pitcher look like a third grader at the plate every three innings swing lazily at pitches the he had no chance of making contact with.

This "Florida/Arizona" model for the 2020 season would be the final movement in the conspiracy to get rid of any semblance of puritanical baseball.  This is the biggest danger that the 2020 season faces, it is the largest risk that could possibly be taken.  The conspirators goal is to make their final move on placing the designated hitter rule into place for all of baseball.  My heart aches at the thought of that happening.  The next step would be replacing managers with robots as all strategy would more or less be taken from the game.  No longer would we see a full roster of a team being utilized in one game.  No more double substitutions to keep the pitcher at the bottom of the line up.  Pinch hitters and runners would become even more scarce than they are now.

I wonder, if it is possible, that some high roller money men in the Bronx, New York financed this virus and paid off news outlets to spread alarm.  Will President Trump step in to save the day by pushing for an amendment to the Constitution outlawing forever the designated hitter rule from the National League or is he also part of the conspiracy to bring the designated hitter into full force through out baseball.

Could this truly be the reason for this virus being unleashed on the world in 2020?  If so, I fear for the future of our country for when the designated hitter rule becomes the new norm for baseball, baseball as we know it will no longer exist.

Okay, so I got a little silly with this post.  I should be able to do that from time to time, don't you think?  When My cousin Dawn posted that meme about the Cards being undefeated while the Cubs have yet to win a single game I wrote to her that it was typical liberal spin on facts to which she replied  "We have to joke this year. We have nothing to watch. I’m rewatching the Stanley Cup now.".  
My cousin Dawn is correct.  Right now at this point in time, we do need to keep a good disposition and make the best of what we are dealt.  Grab fun and laughter wherever you can.  It could be the only things that keeps us all sane.

Good luck dear readers as we work our way through this summer of 2020.

God bless all of you.

PREPARE BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW

I need to write again for my own sanity.  It helps to clear my head and helps me to think about things that need thinking about.  As I sat thinking about what to write two things came to mind.  First I do not want to write about how COVID-19 is effecting me and how I see it effecting others.  We have plenty to read on that topic and nobody knows for sure much about it anyway.  Secondly I did not want to write another piece on Barbara or how life has changed since she passed.  I do not want to burn out my readers by hearing that over and over again. There will be plenty of time to write about many things concerning my life with Barb.  I tried to do this in my last entry concerning Debbie but by the time I got to the end of it, there was still a lot of Barbara in there.  I suppose that is how it will probably be from now on.  So much of my life experiences had Barbara involved in them with me.  After all two-thirds of my life was spent with her.  This is another experience that she and I shared together.

This is about preparing for events that we do not know when or how they will happen.  This is about being ready for as much as we possibly can and the steps that we took to prepare for these things.

One big lesson that I was taught came from Barbara's daddy, Harry.  Harry was a very wise and thoughtful man who had lived through a difficult childhood and ended up making his way through life on his own.  I haven't written much about Harry but I could write a lot.  I can make a direct comparison between Harry and my grandfather and my father.  Both had to deal with events that basically were out of their control and somehow learn to control it as best as they could.  Harry had to deal with making a career out of something he loved, raising two daughters while caring for a wife who was seriously mentally ill.  It was not easy for him or for his daughters.  Harry, however, was able to visualize down the road of life and see what would be required if he were to live a normal lifetime and that is where my lesson from Harry came from.

I was young.  I am not even sure I was his son at the time when he spoke this magic sentence that led me to prepare for the future decades away.  I remember that sentence so clearly.  Harry knew that with Barb and myself being so young, we were making our way through life basically from paycheck to paycheck.  I have tried to pass this quote down to my son and my nieces and nephews through the years.

So you are wondering what this sentence was that changed my life so dramatically?  It was a very simple sentence but filled with some very heavy wisdom.  Harry told me, "When you sit down to pay your bills every month, be sure to pay yourself first."  That was it.  Simple.  Direct.  Wise.  I thought about that advice for a long time.  It made sense to follow that advise but as we all know it isn't always easy, especially when you are just beginning your path through life.

One day, we had a big Human Resources meeting at the company.  It had been at least five years since Harry had bestowed upon me that little piece of wisdom.  The company was starting a new program called a 401k account.  The idea was that money would be held from your check voluntarily and would not be taxable at the end of the year.  It would be invested by an outside source in various markets to maximize the yield of the money.  Furthermore, for the first seven percent of your salary that you set aside for retirement, the company would match it.  So if I decided to set aside that seven percent a month, I would be investing fourteen percent of my salary towards our future and it would all be tax free until I decided to retire.  Even now it almost seems to good to be true, which was why I thought about it for awhile.  While I was thinking, those words that Harry had spoken to me a few years before came back to mind, "pay yourself first..."

I took all the reading material home and studied it.  This was back before the internet was really a thing in ordinary households so I was not able to "google" anything but instead had to read up on it myself.  Barb and I discussed it and decided we could afford somewhere around four percent to set aside at the time.  As our circumstances changed over the years, we could adjust our contributions to the 401k which we did.

Now the time is drawing near that all of that savings over the last thirty five years or so will assist me as I look forward to retirement in October of 2021.  I will be 65 years old, receive Social Security benefits and have that investment from my 401k to tap into if I need to.  Hopefully by then the markets will have recovered sufficiently enough to get me back to where I was before this whole virus thing crashed the markets over the last few weeks.

Even if my money does not recover to it's high points, it is still good to know that I have a safety net of sorts as I begin my life of leisure, as they call retirement.  It was a plan.  It was preparation for the future.  I feel good about it.

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It was a spring day, a Saturday I believe, in 1982 when we received a knock on our door.  The gentleman who was making a visit to us was from Floral Hills Cemetery and Funeral Home.  He said in introducing himself that he was there to help us get prepared for something that everyone has to deal with at some point in life, that being death.  Barbara invited him in to talk before I had a chance to say we were not interested.  For the next two hours or so we talked with this man about what our plans were for the future.

At this time we had begun the process of applying to adopt a child from the Missouri Baptist Children's Home and so talk about preparing for the future found it's way into our thinking.  It made sense to both of us.  Pre-plan everything now for something that could happen at anytime.  The fact is that nobody knows what tomorrow may hold.

We did purchase a pre-plan for the future.  I am not sure what Barb's final thoughts that made her mind up were, but for me it was basically a concern for Barb and for our future child.  If something happened to me, the majority of the funeral plans would be paid for.  This included the plot for our final resting place, the casket, service cost, the grave marker, basically everything except the opening and the closing of the grave.  As young as we were, chances were that the majority of the funeral cost for me would already be paid for and Barb would not have to deal with whatever emotions she might be dealing with while trying to make decisions concerning a funeral.  Anything that was not completely paid for would be taken care of with my life insurance policies that she would receive upon my death.  This was a way to take a lot of the stress from the life changing event that she would face.

We finished paying off the pre-plan several years ago.  It was about that time that Barbara's health began to worsen on an ever increasing pace.

July 23, 2018.  I had spent the night at the hospital holding Barb's hand as she lay in a coma for what had been a week.  From the events of the day before I knew that this would be the last day of our time together.  It was about 7:00 that morning when an old friend of mine, Phil, showed up to visit Barbara to find me there with her.  Phil knew what I knew.  This was not going to get better.  Later he told me that when he walked into that ICU room he wondered if I realized what was happening and when he looked me in the eye he realized that yes, I did know what was happening.  Phil left and soon my sister Karen arrived to sit with me at Barbara's side.  Soon a few of my cousins arrived at the hospital as they had everyday over the previous week.  It was at 10:00 in the morning that day when the doctors and nurses came in to tell me that they had run out of options for Barbara.  I gave permission to take away all of the life support equipment that had kept her alive for the previous week and Barbara left me after I gave her a kiss.

I went out to the waiting room and knew that Barb had a plan for her funeral that was now to come into play.  I asked my cousin Ellen to call the funeral home and let them know about Barbara so that they could get things started on pulling what Barb had chosen so many many years before.  Brett, Karen and myself went to the funeral home the next day and went through things with the funeral director.  We ended up spending maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes there without having to make any serious decisions.  Those decisions had already been made.  Everything was paid for except the opening of the grave, as we were told it would be way back in 1982

Her is the thing concerning this.  It was supposed to make things easier for Barbara, not for me.  The fact is, again, that none of us knows what tomorrow brings.  Anything could happen at anytime.  You know, one of the things that went through my mind and continues to do so, is taking those wedding vows.  Back then it was before you wrote your own vows.  Dr. Wilson had a book of suggested vows that he shared with us as we prepared to get married.  In almost every single one of those vows was the line "Until Death Do Us Part".  I had heard that line in movies, in plays, and in real life at weddings and  I did not think about what it really meant.  It was something that was just said as part of the tradition and the ceremony.  "Until death do us part".  That concept, the idea of death ending your marriage when you are only 19 and 20 years old is such a foreign idea.  You don't think about that actually happening.  It won't happen.  It escapes your mind and you don't think about it.

It does happen though and you do not know when or where it will, but death will visit that marriage. Death visited our marriage and we have parted from each other on this earth.

And so I advise everyone that I can, every time the opportunity presents itself to let people know that one of the best things you can do for each other is to pre-plan your end of life requirements.  It takes so much pressure and stress away from the situation.  The decisions drop to just minor decisions instead of major ones.  It makes it a lot easier on the funeral directer as well.  That has to be a tough job being a funeral director.  Walking grief stricken families through the process of method of burial, purchase of caskets or urns, choosing a plot.  It takes a special person to carry out that job with caring and discernment.  Oh but how much easier it is when all of those decisions are made.  The funeral director can take time to talk and to listen to you about your partner who you have just lost.  They can have the strength to help you  and to comfort you.

Please, my dear readers.  For the sake of your loved ones give them this simple gift of not having to face the stress of making all of these difficult decisions when they are most vulnerable.  Pre-plan.

PREPARE.  Prepare for whatever lies down the road for you and those you love.  Whether it means paying yourself first before you pay your bills or preparing for the unthinkable, prepare.

Prepare, because none of us ever know what lies in store for us tomorrow.