The plan today was to do the final fallen leaf mowing of 2025. The leaves turned and fell very late this fall, so this facet of lawn maintenance has run deep into November and December. (Note: The garden also had an extended growing season, i.e., I ate the final tomato of the season today on my roast beef sandwich at lunch. That’s never happens.)
However, a cold front (a polar vortex if you listen to the weathermen) moved in, and it’s 20 degrees. Add to that a steady northeast wind and damp, humid air, and it’s not the most pleasant of days to work outside.
I’ve never been a person who shies away from cold weather. Hell, I’m usually in shorts and short-sleeve shirts until the temps consistently fall below the 40s. But as I’m firmly into my sixth decade of life, I don’t nearly enjoy the cold weather like I used to. Old man problems.
So, on this cold, dark, and damp Saturday morning, I began to prep for the task at hand when I stopped to look at the weather app on my phone. 23 degrees with a wind chill of 5. Cold.
Perhaps to delay my trip to the outdoors, I risked a look at the 10-day forecast. Guess what? The weather for next Saturday is partly cloudy and 50 degrees.
Boom!
The decision was quickly made. The Saturday plan rapidly shifted. The coat, the hat, and the gloves were put back into the closet. Those leaves on the ground are probably not going anywhere over the next seven days. Mowing and raking in 50 degree weather sounds much better than mowing and raking in single-digit wind chills.
With age comes wisdom, at least that’s what old men like me want to believe. Wisdom says, “Work smarter, not harder.” But today, I’m going with the wisdom of “Work smarter, not colder.”
Next Saturday, I might even get to wear shorts to mow the leaves. Win!
Thirteen years old and I’m playing right field late in the game on a late weeknight game at Liondotte Field, Kansas City, Kansas.
It’s hot.
It’s mid-June humid, and there’s a haze in the air, which, for once, is not caused by the 1970s-era parents chain-smoking in the stands trying to stay awake.
The coach has thrown me out in the field as a defensive substitution so he can sleep better knowing he played every kid on the team and still got the win. There’s hardly a sound around the mostly empty field. The little league field next to us is empty and dark. Those players and their families long cleared out. Our best pitcher is on the mound, throwing his usual gas, so the baseball probably hasn’t seen the outfield grass all night. I feel safe out in right field.
Being thirteen is tough. Things are changing. Life is changing. I am sitting the bench for the first time in my life for two reasons. The first reason is a new coach with new rules. Our new head coach was also in charge of the program’s fundraising and implemented the rule that nobody who did not sell at least one box of 25 World’s Finest chocolate bars would start on his team. I, even the 13-year-old me, do not sell things with much joy or success. I sold only four chocolate bars out of my box of 25, and I sold all four of those to myself.
The second reason I was sitting on the bench that summer was that I knew when we got back to school that fall and the nurse ran us through the compulsory vision and hearing tests, my parents would hear the four words that sent shock waves up most parents’ spines, ”Your kid needs glasses.” I couldn’t see very well. I was nearsighted.
We were as far away from being rich as you could be without being called poor. I knew we didn’t have the money so I’d spent most of the spring and into the summer adjusting. When I was at bat, I saw two baseballs. The trick became figuring out which one to hit. Eventually, I figured it out pretty well, but it took some time.
That night in right field, looking up, I saw swarms of bugs flittering around the outfield light pole. It’s like a natural light show with the light reflecting off the wings and bodies of the insects. I also noticed black shadows streaking across the field of illuminated bugs. Bats.
They were mesmerizing to watch. Zipping around the globe of light in the sky. The crack of the bat brought me back to the baseball field as a check-swing pop fly descended to foul ground down the right field line. The coach yelled at me to wake up. I did not get there nearly in time to make the sure out. The coach yelled some more. I jogged back to my spot in the right field, thinking about echolocation and how the bats found their food in the dark night sky.
Echolocation is when an animal, like a bat, sends out a sound wave. The sound wave reflects off an object back toward the emitting animal, who then processes and determines distance, shape, location, etc. from the rebounding waves. Humans have an innate, but underdeveloped, ability for echolocation. Since most home sapiens have spent eons not using this innate skill, it is hidden for most of us. Many blind people learn to use their innate sense of echolocation to help them navigate their place in space.
Settling back down in my position, I watched the bats work over the last few innings. They zoomed in and out of the light, following the navigation maps constantly being updated in their tiny brains, and never giving up on chasing a meal. It hit me that I could take a lesson from those bats. Not to become a caped crime-fighter in downtown Kansas City, but to trust my senses and keep trying even though my vision was failing. I vowed to keep swinging the bat and using my version of echolocation to make each swing count. Instead of a cape and cowl, this bat-inspired human would don a batting helmet, spikes, and uniform. The struggle would be real, but the journey now had ample fuel.
I found my way eventually. Down the line, over the next school year, my parents calmly accepted those four dreaded words from the school nurse, and I got glasses. I tried to be thoughtful at all times, knowing how much of a financial burden it had to have been, so I took care of those glasses like they were gold. I only wore them when needed and never had them on when it came to an activity where the potential for hard contact was possible.
I did wear them for baseball, though, and it changed everything. When you’ve been trying to hit two baseballs and all of a sudden there’s only one, the success rate of every swing rises. I fell in love with baseball again. I wish I could say the same about selling fundraising chocolate bars, but alas, not all in life is as easily remedied with lenses and frames.
Even though the 13-year-old me couldn’t fully appreciate this at the time, the adult me fully appreciates how my parents handled the baseball disappointments that summer and beyond. They could have jumped in and helped sell my candy bars. Many parents do this; mine did not. They could have complained to the new coach about me being relegated to the very end of the bench. Many parents do this; mine did not. My parents let me navigate through these issues. They let me deal with the situation and, even though it was a blind step, they let me find the way forward. That was pretty cool.
Echolocation. No matter where we are in life, there are times when a step becomes a blind step. Times when the sky is black as night and/or there’s a blinding light ahead. Times when everyone needs to trust the gut and the mind instead of relying on the eyes to move forward in life. Trust your experiences and lessons learned to pick the right ball to hit. Trust the fact that even if you miss, odds are you’ll get another swing on the next pitch, the next game, or the next season.
Baseball bats can help show the way.
I’m now in my early 60s, and I still love baseball. I also still love bats of all kinds.
And it all started on a baseball field.
Baseball at Night by Morris Kantor, 1934 (Photo credit: American Art Museum on Visualhunt.com/)
My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he fell ill and was hospitalized. It makes me wonder if he knew his end was near and the flock would need guidance during these difficult times we are experiencing.
It’s an exceptional book. Pope Francis tells his history, his background, and always ties the past into the relevance of following Christ and taking our faith into the world. Hope is a book I will keep on my shelf. I will add it to my essential reading list to reread at least every five years.
As I type this, I am watching Pope Francis’s funeral procession through the streets of Rome, and I am struck by the words of Father James Martin of the Jesuit Order when asked to define Pope Francis’s lasting legacy. Fr. Martin thought for a few seconds and said Pope Francis’s greatest legacy is that he lived in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis walked the Christian walk. His whole life was dedicated to living his faith both inside and outside the physical church. He lived his faith above and beyond the strict ceremonies and procedures as Jesus himself did. Christianity is a living faith. Christianity is a community. To live as Christians, we must all follow Pope Francis’s spirit and walk with Jesus Christ among our brothers and sisters from the least to the greatest.
I highlighted four quotes from the book that hit hard. Here’s the second in which Pope Francis addresses the fundamental task of a Christian to build a better future by building a better now.
It occurs to me that young people never run the risk described in the Gospel of Luke: “Woe to you when all speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). But above all that, instead of judging or complaining, each generation is called upon to not ignore its crucial challenge: that of educating. The fundamental task that is required of men and women is to make good use of their time on earth and to build the future. In the words of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who I met in Assisi in September 2016, when he was already ninety, and who gave me valuable food for thought, especially in his analysis of the “liquid society”: “If you are thinking about the next year, plant corn; if you are thinking about the next ten years, plant a tree; but if you are thinking about the next hundred years, educate.”
My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he fell ill and was hospitalized. It makes me wonder if he knew his end was near and the flock would need guidance during these difficult times we are experiencing.
It’s an exceptional book. Pope Francis tells his history, his background, and always ties the past into the relevance of following Christ and taking our faith into the world. Hope is a book I will keep on my shelf. I will add it to my essential reading list to reread at least every five years.
As I type this, I am watching Pope Francis’s funeral procession through the streets of Rome, and I am struck by the words of Father James Martin of the Jesuit Order when asked to define the lasting legacy of Pope Francis. Fr. Martin thought for a few seconds and said Pope Francis’s greatest legacy is that he lived in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis walked the Christian walk. His whole life was dedicated to living his faith both inside and outside the physical church. He lived his faith above and beyond the strict ceremonies and procedures as Jesus himself did. Christianity is a living faith. Christianity is community. To live as Christians, we must all follow Pope Francis’s spirit and, from least to greatest, walk with Jesus Christ among our brothers and sisters.
I highlighted four quotes from the book that hit hard. Here’s the first.
“We must feed hope through the force of gestures, instead of placing our hope in gestures of force. “
Of the entire canon of Bob Dylan’s work, I think Workingman’s Blues #2 runs a close second to Like a Rolling Stone. The song came out in 2006 on Dylan’s Modern Times album. I cannot remember where I first heard or became aware of it. It was probably on one of the last area real-life classic rock stations before those faded into oblivion. The song isn’t one of the more popular or well-known of Dylan’s works but it strikes a chord in my middle-class soul.
Dylan says the song was written after touring with the great Merle Haggard as a nod to his Workin’ Man’s Blues, hence the “#2” in the title. For me, this is such a great song because of the visuals and emotions Dylan strikes with the music and the lyrics. Add in Dylan’s gravely, older voice, and this song hits the mark dead center.
The gold nugget at the heart of the story is, that despite life’s burdens that drag the narrator down, there exists the hope things will get better. At the end of the day, we all need to shine our nugget of hope to keep it fueling our daily toils despite “the buyin’ power of the proletariat” being down. (Who else besides Dylan can work the word “proletariat” into a song without a “WTF?” by the listening audience?)
Stoned59, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Workingman’s Blues #2 by Bob Dylan
There’s an evening’ haze settlin’ over the town Starlight by the edge of the creek The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak The place I love best is a sweet memory It’s a new path that we trod They say low wages are a reality If we want to compete abroad
My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf Come sit down on my knee You are dearer to me than myself As you yourself can see I’m listening’ to the steel rails hum Got both eyes tight shut Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from Creeping it’s way into my gut
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Now, I’m sailing’ on back, ready for the long haul Tossed by the winds and the seas I’ll drag them all down to hell and I’ll stand them at the wall I’ll sell them to their enemies I’m trying’ to feed my soul with thought Gonna sleep off the rest of the day Sometimes no one wants what we got Sometimes you can’t give it away
Now the place is ringed with countless foes Some of them may be deaf and dumb No man, no woman knows The hour that sorrow will come In the dark I hear the night birds call I can hear a lover’s breath I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall Sleep is like a temporary death
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Well, they burned my barn, they stole my horse I can’t save a dime I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced Into a life of continual crime I can see for myself that the sun is sinking How I wish you were here to see Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking That you have forgotten me?
Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret They waste your nights and days Them I will forget But you I’ll remember always Old memories of you to me have clung You’ve wounded me with words Gonna have to straighten out your tongue It’s all true, everything you have heard
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
In you, my friend, I find no blame Wanna look in my eyes, please do No one can ever claim That I took up arms against you All across the peaceful sacred fields They will lay you low They’ll break your horns and slash you with steel I say it so it must be so
Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue Gonna give you another chance I’m all alone and I’m expecting you To lead me off in a cheerful dance Got a brand new suit and a brand new wife I can live on rice and beans Some people never worked a day in their life Don’t know what work even means
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Storytellers, really good storytellers, are priceless. It doesn’t matter if it’s the storyteller down at the local tavern or the storytellers behind award-winning books, movies, and songs, they are a precious commodity. They are a useful and valuable thing for community and society.
One of America’s greatest storytellers was the musician John Prine. Prine produced a treasure trove of storyteller songs in his 50+ years as a professional musician. He’d survived throat cancer and lung cancer. Both affected his singing voice but neither stopped him from performing, which he did until his untimely death in April of 2020 from COVID complications.
I’m eternally grateful to Coach Paul Lane for burning a CD of John Prine and sliding it into a stack of CDs he gave me one summer. I remember throwing it into the player while working out in the garage gym when “Hello in There” came on. I had to stop everything I was doing, sit down, and listen to those lyrics three or four times before I could get back to business. It is such a great song, mesmerizing and hypnotic to the point you feel you’re sitting in the room with the old couple. That’s powerful storytelling. That’s magic.
There’s so much one could ramble on about John Prine but I think his collaborator on the great “In Spite of Ourselves”, Iris DeMint, said it best.
“John Prine was, without a doubt, one of the greatest songwriters this world will ever know,” DeMent wrote on Facebook. “Here’s why he rests on my heart’s mountaintop: Because he cared enough to look—at me, you, all of us—until he saw what was noble, and then he wrapped us up in melodies and sung us back to ourselves. That was the miracle of John Prine. And it was enough.”
There are a multitude of great John Prine content on YouTube. One can randomly select one and travel down the road to storytelling greatness. I particularly appreciate his work throughout his career highlighting the struggles of Vietnam Veterans, like “Sam Stone” and “Angel From Montgomery”. Below is a link to the last song he recorded before passing. It’s called “I Remember Everything” and it’s storytelling only as John Prine can weave.
John Prine’s last recorded song, “I Remember Everything”.
DDay+80—eighty years since the Greatest Generation began the greatest offensive in all human history directed at the face of tyranny.
With three writing projects in the orbit of three different eras of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s professional life, I’ve done quite a bit of reading and research on Ike Eisenhower. The most important thing I’ve discovered in this work is how much I find Ike’s ideas and philosophies mirror my ideas and philosophies as I approach age 60.
Growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, all I ever really knew about President Eisenhower in the grand scheme of things was that he was born in Kansas. I remember bits and pieces of visiting the Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas when I was about 8 or so on a family summer vacation to visit my grandparents’ house at Tuttle Creek Lake near Manhattan. My main memory is standing on a hot summer day inside the cool and quiet Place of Meditation, the final resting place of Ike and Maime. The surviving impression from that day is my gut telling me this place was somewhere special and the people buried here were something special.
After spending the last few years on a deep dive into Dwight David Eisenhower, I now can confirm those gut feelings, Ike was something special and his influence helped build the United States into the world leader the people of my generation and those to follow grew up taking for granted.
We could all benefit at this 2024 moment in the United States from the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower. There are many historical parallels to the decade leading up to World War II that are increasingly impossible to ignore. As Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In remembrance of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, here is the letter General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, sent his troops before the commencement of the D-Day attack on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 2024.
May God bless all the brave soldiers and their families for their bravery and sacrifice in standing up to Nazi evil.
General Eisenhower’s letter to the troops before the D-Day invasion, June 1944.
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brother-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-1941. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their war strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
A playground with too many rules and regulations and their strict enforcement stifles the playground. The results are kids spending all their recess time against the wall and losing their privileges to use the playground equipment, the sports balls, or the jump ropes.
Nothing gets accomplished. Nobody grows.
A playground with no rules, regulations, or enforcement results in chaos. The playground devolves into complete chaos. Nobody has any fun and the only means for structure falls to the law of the jungle.
Nothing gets accomplished. Nobody grows.
The ultimate playground monitor establishes and enforces enough rules to provide an environment where the kids are allowed a generous amount of freedom. These kids tend to have fun, work with each other to solve problems, and discover better ways to operate without spiraling into chaos or choking development.
Things get accomplished. People grow.
As I write this in the United States of America in the Spring of 2024, our nation has been derailed over the past 40 years by a fight between the first and the second model of playground monitoring. As a result, we’re getting nothing done. We are pushing our problems forward to tomorrow instead of developing solutions today. We are eroding what we can be as a nation.
Our confusion and bickering have let us become victims of the worst bad players from the fringes. Our confusion and bickering have let the proverbial fox into the hen house. It’s time to turn that around and get us back on track.
In short, we need to find our way back to electing government officials on all levels who will work to establish our governing bodies with the ultimate playground monitor as the primary guiding force.
The first step is to pay attention. Seek the truth in what’s real. Learn to sift through the bullshit. Walk around and see that things are not as bad as people tell us. Someone is always screaming that the sky is falling but, you know what? The reality shows otherwise.
Observe, analyze, and decide for yourself.
Let’s build better playgrounds!
State Government Photographer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
I had to add this image because it reminded me of my school days at Christ The King Catholic School where our playground was the church parking lot. We played hard and I went through a lot of Toughskin jean knees there. DimiTalen, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
I snapped these photos of the neighborhood trees and one of our oak trees yesterday. It was a cool, overcast, and drizzly morning but the colors of the leaves popped. The same view this morning, with the bright November sunshine radiating the colors is also beautiful, but, in my opinion, not as striking.
Something hit me as I stood and looked down the street. The first thought that jumped out of my brain didn’t jive with the beauty before me.
What was that first thought?
I saw all those leaves in their various stages of color transformation and thought, “Man, I’m going to have to rake up all those SOBs soon.”
The other side of my brain quickly jumped in. “But, they’re so beautiful. Just take a few deep breaths and enjoy.” I took that advice.
Even standing in a cold drizzle couldn’t rob that moment of natural wonder. It made me wonder, though, why I would think such an initial negative reaction. Truthfully, it made me feel a little guilty. Why didn’t I just immediately go glass half full instead of starting glass half empty?
I was reminded of a chapter I’d recently read in Secrets of the Mind compilation from Scientific American on how our brains learn by processing information in interconnecting neural maps. The negative thoughts and experiences on raking leaves are neurally associated with leaves turning vibrant colors and falling to the ground.
I didn’t feel so guilty then. My brain was just doing what brains do. It processed the visual information as an awesome sight and triggered a little response to remind me I would have work to do. My brain was taking care of me!
I also learned an important take-home lesson. Amazing things require work.
Whether it’s art, athletics, family, school, work, or something as simple as the leaves changing, remarkable things in this world are built on a scaffold of effort. The glass is half full because somebody put in the effort to fill it.
It’s your choice. Do the work and fill the glass? Do the work and fill your space with kindness and beauty? Or not?
I know which I choose. I know there’s a cost and work to be done. But, that’s okay. The end result is worth the work. Enjoying a remarkable and beautiful sight in my neighborhood is worth the work I’ll do picking up the leaves.
Silver linings are sewn from the thread of effort.
It was 97 degrees and the “feels-like” temperature hovered around 104. Yes, it was hot.
It was especially hot for an old Bubba like me. But I had what they call in sports and in rocket science, a “window of opportunity”, so I drank a lot of water and got the job done before the evening’s festivities began.
While mowing, my mind often wanders. Sometimes my brain rants. Sometimes it attempts to solve highly complex problems. But sometimes it kicks up memories of things not remembered for years.
In this particular instance, it was a trip down memory lane to the Fourth of July, 1981, and an American Legion baseball doubleheader road trip to the Fort Leavenworth Army base in Leavenworth, KS.
If memory serves, we only had 9, maybe 10, players make the 45-minute drive with our coaches to Leavenworth that day for a noon first pitch. Four or five players couldn’t make it because of family commitments or work. The legendary Kansas Hall of Fame baseball coach, Dennis “Harpo” Hurla was our manager. This was back in the day before he was a legend. Back then, Dennis was just a great baseball coach and a fabulous human; his well-deserved legendary status would come with time. I think our assistant coaches, “Easy” Ed Hernandez and Dom Dumovich, also traveled with us that day.
It was hot. Triple digits. We were smack dab in a month-long heat wave that eventually convinced my dad it was time to upgrade to central air conditioning. That had to be some serious heat (and maybe a little bit of whining from the family) if it convinced my dad to spend money on air conditioning.
There was a great crowd on the Fort Leavenworth base that day, even though 90% of onlookers were there for the holiday festivities on the post and not to watch a bunch of rowdy, 17-18-year-old baseball players play.
Inside my 58-year-old brain, I feel we swept the doubleheader. I know we at least won one game because we almost always won at least one game, right? I remember being completely drained physically at the end of the second game. This was before the time when everyone felt the need to make every senior-level baseball field a mini, professional-grade baseball field. The infield was dirt. The outfield was dry, sun-burnt grass. The kicker, however, was the dugouts, which were the open-air, chain-link fence versions with no roof or sun protection. In short, it was miserably hot with no means of escape until the final out of the final inning.
After the game, we packed up the gear with the normal high school boy smack-talking and giving Harpo crap about his talent for scheduling games at the worst times of day under the worst environmental conditions. We carried the team gear and our gear to Harpo’s red and white VW van. He must have felt sorry for us or maybe he appreciated the fact we showed up and played the games because, shortly after pulling out of the Ft. Leavenworth front gate onto K-7 highway, he flicked on the right blinker and turned into Pizza Hut. I can still visualize him turning around in the driver’s seat with that million-dollar smile of his, and asking, “Boys, how about some pizza?”
Our mothers would have been impressed with the speed at which nine teenage boys threw off their sweaty and stinky t-shirts, slapped on a clean one dug from the recesses of their bags, and headed for the Pizza Hut door. The blast of cold air as I stepped into the restaurant and the smell of pizza wafting through the air is a memory I hope never slips from my neural storage.
Never before had ice-cold Pepsi from the tap tasted so refreshing.
Never before had a pizza been so utterly satisfying.
There may have been a shared pitcher of beer somewhere in the mix for the 18-year-olds (wink wink) only. The camaraderie around those two tables in an almost empty Pizza Hut restaurant on a blistering Fourth of July baseball road trip evening is the essence of what sports and teams are about. Good times.
As I finished mowing and sat in the shade with my mental faculties firmly back in 2023, I smiled at the memory of that summer day in 1981. I smiled thinking about those teammates. I smiled thinking about Easy Ed and Dom. I smiled thinking about Dennis “Harpo” Hurla and the opportunity he gave me to enjoy baseball at a high level. Mostly, I thought about ice-cold Pepsi, a belly full of pizza, and a day spent playing the game I loved with the best teammates one can hope to spend time with.
I also thought of young athletes today existing in our uber-connected cyber society. A hope I have is the younger generations of players don’t miss the experiences these lifetime connections offer as they navigate the slippery slope that is the modern corporate youth sports model.
THE COACH HAYS 