June 2024 – Even A Broken Clock

And yet another of my childhood heroes is gone. This time it is the one baseball player who was acclaimed as the best of all time, Wilie Mays. Back in the ‘60’s, he helped me to become a fan of the San Francisco Giants. I had migrated from being a fan of the New York Yankees (after all, they had Yogi Bear as a player), to the St. Louis Cardinals, in their heyday of the ‘60’s. But it was the Giants, with Mays, McCovey, and Marichal who captured my imagination. I still have a baseball glove that bears Bobby Bond’s signature.

To those who have a hard time imagining what being a baseball fan in the middle of the country in the 1960’s was like, put yourself in the position of only seeing one game a week on TV. Voices like Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese broadcast the images directly to me. The beer ads that permeated the air waves bore images of Bears and an old pro for an unidentifiable sport. Ads for cars featured people like Dinah Shore entreating us to “see the USA, in our Chevrolet”. Then came the game. I remember pitching matchups like Marichal and Gibson, Juan with his signature high kick, and Gibson just being dominant. Above all, there was the grace and power of Willie Mays, who could overcome the winds of Candlestick to blast another homer. I was too young to argue who was the best center fielder in New York – Snider, or Mantle, or Mays. When I became aware of baseball, the moves to the West Coast were fait accompli. So I never knew the Dodgers or the Giants as New York teams, they belonged to the West Coast. But they were featured prominently on “The Game of the Week”.

I have often wondered how Marichal would fare if he tried to use that leg kick today. When coaches are measuring the hundredths of a second for a ball to get to the catcher, those few extra moments where the leg went up to the sky would seem a useless luxury. But for the batter, who didn’t know what type of pitch was coming his way, that high leg kick was just part of the agony of waiting.

There is a feeling that things were so much better back in the past. Surely we were watching baseball at its peak. But I just saw a game this week which brought me back to those images I remember so well. It was Keller vs. Greene, and the game was scoreless into the 8^th inning. Mitch Keller reminds me of Marichal, having such a wide array of pitches, and seemingly he will be the one to complete the most games during each year. The only thing I can say about the decline of the game is that the supporting cast for the team’s stars may not be as strong as it was in the ‘60’s, with people like Hart, and Cepeda, and McCovey being replaced by those who seem to struggle to reach the Mendoza line. It would be inconceivable to have regulars in a line-up who bat below .200 back in the olden days. Now? With pitching so dominant, and with home runs being so venerated, it is the strike-out that seems more frequent than ever. It used to be an anomaly to strike out over 100 times in a year. Now? It is becoming rare to see someone strike out fewer than 100 times over the course of a season.

There are a few today who approach the level of a Mays. Aaron Judge seems capable of putting seasons together with similar statistics. It is only when you realize that Mays kept up a level of excellence for two decades that you become able to place Willy properly among the luminaries of baseball. And I do remember the last two years back with the Mets, where it was obvious that the athleticism had waned. Just like for me, where I came into the world on the day that Willy Mays made “The Catch”, I can feel my powers fading a bit as I near the 70^th anniversary of my own birth.

But I guess part of the charm of baseball is the endless arguments about the players of the current age vs. those of your youth. They always were a reflection of your own youth, and just as they embodied virility and endless possibility, you took on a share of their vitality as part of your own. Now? Baseball is just too slow to capture the attention of today’s youth, since it requires you to spend actual time watching innings in order to have any appreciation for the game. My only thought is at least a bat flip will match the typical Instagram attention span.

And so, as of May 30, 2024, our long national nightmare …. is just beginning again. To those who believe a first conviction of a former president of the United States will result in the cause of this former president going away, I have some beach front property in West Virginia to sell to you. If anything, the clamor from the “victimized” classes is going to increase, not go away. The nattering nabobs of negativism seem to believe that only crimes defined by Republicans are legitimate crimes. They earnestly believe the entire federal government is arrayed against them, merely because they are being prosecuted by those who administer justice.

So it is abundantly clear we have a split screen nation. One side is wanting to worship the con man who fooled millions into believing he was on their side, while the other side is wondering when the gullible fools will have the scales fall from their eyes, and undergo their road to Damascus conversion. I honestly believe the true supporters of Trump will never weaken in their support for the charlatan and his supposed cause. That is because they are convinced if they admit their champion is a fraud, the entire façade they’ve built up over the years will crumble. They will have to acknowledge the US has grown beyond a monolithic white protestant culture, into one that reflects the diversity found in the world. And, quite frankly, that prospect terrifies many on the right. They will be forced to admit proficiency exists across all racial and ethnic lines, which is contrary to their belief that white is best and deserves to dominate.

You hear so many of these idolaters transfer their allegiances from God to the developer who has mucked up most of the businesses he’s been associated with over the decades. They decry the deep state that stands against their ascension again, since anyone who opposes them, must be against America. You hear many claim that Biden has been terrible, though if you push them for an example of his errors, they are unable to reply. Really, what you are seeing is the demolition of an entire belief system built up over decades. Face it, trickle down economics as enunciated by Ronald Reagan and his followers, has been a poor deal for many people. It has turned them from the middle class, to the poor who cannot afford life. Of course, since many people are incapable of understanding subtlety, they support those who scream the loudest and share the shortest soundbite to support their position. Expecting a reversal of 40 years of mismanagement, they choose to follow someone who conveniently reverses all of reality. It is so easy to draw out fake memories of times past, when things were good. Never mind that all of history is against them. And by following their selective memories, they ignore all of the evidence of future intent found in the statements of their supposed leader.

So we are to believe that crime is raging out of control, when all statistics show crime rates have come down from decades past. And we are to believe we have a feckless foreign policy, because of course, no country would dare to attack another while the past president was in control. And we are to believe the economy in the US was never better than under Trump, something than can be disproven through a simple Google search. While at the same time we are supposed to believe that truth, justice, and the American way will flourish once again if we only put these supposed patriots back in power. How gullible to they think we are?

Actually, we have very clear evidence about their beliefs. An entire party is predicated upon supporting their leader, simply because they now have a leader who uses bullying as a primary tool. Once their current leader goes away, either through electoral defeat, or through administration of justice, or through human mortality, they will turn around and select another who is capable of being a figurehead to lead their one, true cause. The many who insist on the purity of their cause will latch onto someone, anyone, who is able to deceive them into believing they need him. And have no fear, it will be a him, not a her. Eventually the Republicans will support a woman, but just as the election of Barack Obama did not eliminate the latent racism in the country, the first election of a woman to the presidency will not eliminate the misogyny of the country. Given how that trait seems rooted more firmly in one party, I predict it will be Democrats who cause the election of the first woman to the presidency.

And just like the racism that oozed out after Obama’s election, the virulent strain of misogyny will tear apart this nation even more than it is already. Face it, the attacks upon women’s agency are just beginning. Should Donald win another term, the hounds will be unleashed. Forget any form of contraception. That is something thought of by evil people who do not want women to be vessels of creation, a calling clearly authorized in the Bible (sarcasm on). That is what upsets me the most, is the misuse of the words of scripture to justify the subjugation of – just about anyone viewed as potentially progressive. When you hear about ministers who are upbraided by members of their congregation for preaching on the words of the Beatitudes, because they cast Jesus as a woke liberal, that’s when you realize there is nothing these brazen hypocrites will not do to gain power.

But then the economy. Things were so much better back then The political ads are already dripping their poison into the veins of America. And while some sense the true nature of this poison, others welcome it as they welcome morphine to ease their pains of existence. Sooner or later, they will find themselves addicted to the words of their cult leader. When that happens, we all will lose.

Month: June 2024

Say, Hey!

The Unending Crisis