2,492 . . .

2,492

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_consecutive_games_played_streaks)
". . . The record of playing in 2,632 consecutive games over more than 16 years is held by Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles. Ripken surpassed Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees, whose record of 2,130 consecutive games had stood for 56 years. Before Gehrig, the record was held by Everett Scott (1,307 consecutive games), a shortstop with the Red Sox and Yankees whose streak ended in 1925, less than a month before Gehrig's began. Scott broke the previous record which was established by George Pinkney (577 consecutive games) from 1885–1890. . . "


. . . so, give or take, I have logged 2,492 blog posts since I began this, yes many of them were frivolous; some of them were silly; a number of them had absolutely no point at all;  several of them contained typos and other errors of which I am NOT proud; some of them were a bit clever.  But I did it!  And believe me, I well know, expect and deserve NO AWARD.  I have posted a blog containing a thought, a fantasy, a musing, a digression, a song, a photo, an otherwise 'unconsidered' (hopefully to someone) issue - but they were there, each and everyday since February 9, 2011. . . and here is the first one . . . (for any and all that may, or may not, give a fig). . .


". . . I've always been curious about blogging and wary of tweeting. I mean, who really wants to know every fleeting thought that crosses my warped little mind? And I base this curiosity and wariness on my own tastes. In all honesty, I have little to no interest in the fleeting thoughts of too many people. If I think about it hard enough, I may be able to conjure up two or three names. But pop 'icons', actors/actresses (or other 'entertainers'), media 'celebrities', 'news' commentators, talk show hosts and politicians for the most part, have difficulty enough formulating a coherent sentence let alone expressing any thought, sentiment or observation about a topic that would be of even the most remote interest to ME. . . So having said THAT, I begin my first blog. Yes, the thoughts, sentiments, observations, incoherent (and hopefully a few coherent) sentences and fleeting thoughts of MINE for all to see! . .  What the $*&#k was I thinking???? . . . "


Working
©1998 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Principles . . .

Courtesy of The Principles of Adaptive Design | Brad Frost

(from http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/orioles-vp-doesnt-want-president-trump-to-throw-out-the-first-pitch-at-camden-yards/)
". . . Earlier this week Angelos, son of team owner Peter Angelos, appeared on the B-more Opinionated podcast, during which he said Trump would have to apologize for some things before being allowed to throw out the first pitch at Camden Yards. CBS Baltimore has a transcript:
“I know the administration has taken on some criticism for its controversial positions concerning things that are considered to be problematic from a race, ethnicity, religious, gender, disability community ... people in those communities have been spoken about very negatively by a candidate, now the President. . . “My personal opinion, I think it’s incumbent upon any individual who leads a country to step away from those type of statements, to apologize for those statements and turn the page and then to move forward in embracing their community. Until that happens, it wouldn’t be my preference to have the President come throw a pitch.”. . . “Everybody wants to see whoever is in the office the President do extremely well. The first step to doing extremely well, is for this person who is in the office, to retract all these outrageous things that have been said and simply apologize. You don’t say those things about women, you don’t say those things about different ethnic groups ... and if you do say them, you need to be big enough to apologize.”. . . "

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Bobble . . .

-head history . . .

(from http://www.bobbleheads.com/history-of-bobbleheads.html)
Bobblehead dolls ". . .  are thought to date back at least 150 years. The earliest known reference to similar toys is from the 1842 short story The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, which described a character as having a neck which was "like the neck of plaster cats which wag their heads". . . Player-specific dolls for (professional baseball players) Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roger Maris, and Roberto Clemente, were produced for the first time and sold during the 1960 World Series. Although the uniforms were different, each of them shared the same face. Unfortunately, because of their papier-mache construction, very few of these early bobble head dolls have survived without damage - usually chipping or cracking. In the 1970s, construction methods improved, and new bobbles were made of ceramic materials. They became popular for other sports, as well as for cartoon characters of the day. The bobblehead set for the Beatles became one of the most famous and rare of all time, and it is still a valuable collectible today. However, by the mid-1970s, bobbleheads had again fallen out of favor, and very few new bobbleheads were produced. It would take nearly two decades for them to return to prominence. . . After 2000, new variations of the dolls were also produced - including the mini-bobblehead, bobble computer sitters, bobblehead banks, and even bobblehead air fresheners. Customized bobbleheads also became possible and several companies began to offer this service. Many current bobblehead dolls closely resemble their real-life counterparts, including matching tattoos, hair styles, headbands, and even scars. . ."

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Little Gnats . . .

About the time of pre-adolescence, Benjamin acquired a habit of visiting his parents' bedroom before he went to sleep, milking the opportunity to put off retiring as long as possible.  It was always a light-hearted endeavor with the child purposely being as outrageous as possible by making frivolous conversation from suggestion of a 'sleepover' in his parents' bed to identifying some imaginary insect in some hidden corner of the room.  The parents, as a result of these nightly encounters, took to good-naturedly calling little Benjamin "the gnat", implying the persistence of the tiny flying annoyance.  "Time for bed, little gnat," they would say.

Years later, Benjamin now a fine, strapping young man, developed a not-unusual love of the game of baseball and enjoyed few things more than watching the games of the local professional franchise on television when unable to enjoy them out with friends or up-clos-and-personal-at-the-ballpark.  His mother, who no one is really certain whether she is a real fan or if she is exacting a form of revenge, has also taken to enjoying baseball games on television, likewise for lack of alternative viewing opportunities.  When the two are strategically positioned beside one another on a couch, Ben's Mom has a greater tendency to express an emotional reaction to a successful, as well as a disastrous one, play during the games.  Benjamin, on the other hand reserves his enthusiasm for only select positive or negative developments, and frequently offers a SHUSHHHHHH or some other reprimand to his mother during or after her not infrequent outbursts.

During a recent plea to his father to otherwise occupy his mother in hopes of securing an opportunity to enjoy his baseball game alone, found himself referring to his Mom as a . . .

GNAT!!

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What It Was. . .

. . . was baseball. . .

"They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball.  And they tell you to hit it square."

    Willie Stargell (1940-2001; former Pittsburgh Pirates left fielder and 1st baseman)

 "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."

    Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in 1992's "A League of Their Own"


I'm not really a huge baseball fan.  Not really a fan of any professional or college-level sports. Guess you could say not a sports fan at all.

But, two-fifths of my family are definitely sports fans, and I think it safe to say most ardently BASEBALL fans, so consequently I occasionally assume the role of a spectator, being the good 'sport' (pun intended) that I am and for the enjoyment of the company. Some aspects of of baseball I do find especially irritating though. First, and probably the most contributory to my remaining dislikes of baseball, is the size of the professional baseball players' salaries.  Yes it's free market principles at work.  And yes, if huge amounts of the general public (and the two-fifths of my family) refrained from purchasing tickets to attend games then the principles of supply and demand would bring those prices (and salaries, etc) down.

Next (and wouldn't you know it- it's money again) is the astronomical prices levels being charged for food and beverages at the ball park.  To the supply and demand equation I (and usually the two-fifths) do not contribute. So in and of itself, the prospect of being a baseball fan simply does not provide me with an adequate return of investment both in terms of money and my valuable time.

But being the optimistic pessimist, I do enjoy aspects of my periodic jaunts to the ballpark when asked.  I am fascinated by the ever-present herd mentality of humans at a large sporting event.  And I do enjoy the specter of my fellow homosapiens gorging on greasy food and shouting specific instructions to young men hundreds of yards away and far out of hearing proximity. But, as I realized at a recent game, I am becoming increasingly appreciative of the complex psychology (all baseball superstition aside) of the game of baseball.

What do you think?
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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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Twister. . .

. . . of a game

Pam and Harrison are the sports fans in the family and I would venture to say that their two favorite sports are baseball and football (the American one).  I can understand the former much better than the latter.  I would never go to sleep lulled by the mellifluous tones of the baseball broadcasters by choice but the other night. . . I did.  Pam fell asleep as the Orioles and Rays began their extra innings.   I slept fitfully but managed to make enough sense of the broadcast each time I awoke to know that it was still undecided.  About 2:05 and 18 innings since the game began, I heard the bad news (for Baltimore fans). . . the Os lost.


(from http://www.peterga.com/baseball/quotes/the_game.htm)
Mark Twain
Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.

W.P. Kinsella
It is the same game that Moonlight Graham played in 1905. It is a living part of history, like calico dresses, stone crockery, and threshing crews eating at outdoor tables. It continually reminds us of what was, like an Indian-head penny in a handful of new coins.

Bernard Malamud:
The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

John Cheever
The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One would not want as a reader a man who did not appreciate the finesse of a double play.

Roger Angell, "Agincourt and After," Five Seasons:
It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazard flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

8 year-old Jewish boy, quoted in "The Children's God", (Psychology Today Dec. 1985)
I don't know if this is what you're asking. But I feel closest to God, like after I'm rounding second base after I hit a double.

James Thurber
The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees.

Norman Cousins
At a Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles, I asked Will Durant if he was ninety-four or ninety-five. "Ninety-four," he said. "You don't think I'd be doing anything as foolish as this if I were ninety-five, do you?"

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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
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Do brains come along with fame? . . .

. . . As if it isn't bad enough that a baseball player will now be paid $25 million a year, we are actually taking the advice of people who are merely qualified to hit a ball with a stick or play a guitar and sing a song.

Let me be clear, I respect talent. True talent, be it athletic, intellectual or artistic, is a gift and a wonder and truly a benefit to humankind. But, would you actually hire one of Ringling Brothers' clowns to do your taxes or ask a Hollywood actor to counsel you on your marriage?





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