The joy that baseball brings stands test of time, technology

posted 08:12 AM 04/23
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I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. My curiosity regarding the game’s outcome was satisfied when the final score flashed across my computer monitor literally seconds after the game ended. But I did arise in the wee hours of two mornings to watch the Seattle Mariners play two games in Tokyo.

You see, my love affair with baseball goes back some 75 years when a gruff, often profane one-armed next-door neighbor in Spokane offered to take me to see my first professional baseball game. We watched the Spokane Hawks play the Yakima Pippins, two teams in the Class B Western International League, a league with locallyowned teams from Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.

Teams in the league were made up of a motley assortment of players. There were local young men who would spend their summers playing baseball and then return to their regular jobs. There were a few young prospects just breaking in to what they hoped would be a long career. And there were always a few veterans, even some with major league experience, who were hoping to rediscover their talents. They were often sad figures.

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We have become a nation of distrusting strangers

posted 04:54 AM 03/07

We really don’t like each other, do we? Each day we see evidence that we have become one nation, divisible. We see so much anger and hatred, and they will become even more apparent as we move toward November. Why? Maybe it’s because we never get to know one another.