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.

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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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Psychology. . .

. . . Madison Avenue. . .

        . . . and me. . .

As a TV-watching kid, I loved commercials.  At least SOME commercials.  Remember "I can't believe I ate the whole thing. . . You ate it Ralph!"?  Not so much as a 'hardly-watch-any-TV' adult.  In these days of cable television, Netflix and bluerays, not only do commercials turn me off, I refuse to even watch conventional, network (or local for that matter) television.

Do I want a  medal?  (Or just a chest on which to pin it?)  Naw! Just musing about how popular entertainment and I, myself have changed.

As I write, commercial AM radio (yes Virginia, there STILL is an AM radio) is chattering in the background.  One commercial, in particular, annoys me.  It's one for the newest casino in the area and runs no risk of enticing me to patronize them at all.  The the appeal to the base desire for attention, not to mention an easy fortune procured by gambling, is a fascinating psychological ploy.

"Everywhere you look there’s endless excitement and the kind of thrills you just don’t find anywhere else; like over 1,000 Vegas-style slot machines, the hottest Table Games around, dining that always gets two forks up and the kind of red carpet service you would expect in Hollywood."

I've been to Hollywood.  Believe me, I am not the kind of person that gets 'red carpet service' let alone 'cheap, throw-rug' service in Hollywood.  Just the regular-Joe-schmuck service that I (and most other regular people) get anywhere else.

It's good to dream.  It's certainly good to possess a certain self-esteem.  But don't confuse dreaming or self-esteem with crass commercialism.  I think the lesson here is, quite simply and obviously, 'don't think that you won't lose money gambling just because you're pretending that you're a movie star.'

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Happiness. . .

(from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200501/happy-hour by Carlin Flora)
". . . The things we expect will bring us lasting joy rarely do. Whether it's losing 25 pounds, getting a major promotion or watching a troupe of perennial losers finally win the big one, long-anticipated events give us a swell of glee... and then we settle back into being just about as happy as we've always been. Most of us have a happiness "set point," fixed by temperament and early life experience, which is very difficult to shift. Whether you win the lottery or wind up in a wheelchair, within a year or two you generally end up just about as happy (or unhappy) as you started out.

Yet the quest for happiness isn't futile. Psychologists now believe that many of us can turn the well-being thermostat up or down a few notches by changing how we think about anticipation, memory, and the present moment. Our sense of well-being is intimately tied into our perception of time. The problem is that we usually get it wrong. Memory tricks us—we don't remember our experiences properly, and that leaves us unable to accurately imagine the way we'll feel in the future. At the same time, expectations mislead us: We never learn to predict what will make us happy, or how to anticipate the impact of major life experiences. . . "

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