Baseball, Sit Back and Enjoy

Posting today about baseball. The picture above is of my 1960 Babe Ruth baseball team. We won the championship of the Greebrier County Babe Ruth League. I am the wormy little kid on the bottom right. That was 54 years ago. I went on to make the All Star team that year which was an honor. I don't think we got out of districts. I went on to play in high school and played intramural in college and was out. Since that time I coached in Babe Ruth and Little league. I was the League president of a 13-14 year old league in Tallahassee and took a team to the state tournament.Nowadays my biggest investiture is having MLB network on my sports cable package.

I remember the summer that I played in this league. I can remember a catch I made late in a game on a ball that was hit over my head in center field. I had to run like the wind to catch it. I remember catching it over my shoulder as I dove to make a desparation attempt. That catch preserved a win for our team and contributed to our winning the league championship. I also seem to recall that it made me a member of the All Star team as the coach hand picked me to be one of his "at large" picks. I have vivid memories of the smells around that field, the way my baseball glove fit and how hard it was to hit a good pitcher.

Baseball has always been intriguing to me. It is a painfully slow game to watch. It is slow to play it. You can go an entire game and never get on base and never have a chance to make a play in the field. Yet it appeals to millions of people. It has been called our national past time. Many people forego watching it by saying it is just way too slow for my taste.

My favorite movie is "Field of Dreams" produced and released in 1989, starring Kevin Costner. There is something ethereal about that movie. If you have not seen it, it is about a gaggle of ghost baseball players who live in a corn field in Iowa. The theme is concerning dreams that have not ever come true, where and what exactly is heaven and time travel. The movie speaks to the zen of baseball. The great James Earl Jones gives a sililoqouy in the midst of the movie that captures the spirit of baseball about as well as it can be captured. If you have not watched that movie you should You Tube the piece by Jones.

I am at peace when I watch a baseball game on television. I tend to be a Braves fan foremost and a Rays fan secondarily. However, it does not really matter what teams are playing, I am going to watch, eat a bowl of ice cream or a bag of popcorn. I am fortunate to live in Tallahassee which has Florida State University baseball which is as good as any in the country. When I am sitting in a stadium, my menu changes to hot dogs, nachoes or roasted peanuts.

My family is always assaulting me with questions about what to get me for my birthday, May 27th and then for Fathers Day, 2-3 weeks later. I recently advised them that I want fitted baseball hats, size 7 & 1/2, for each major league team. That will be a collection of 30 hats which I will like having. That should get them off of me for the next 15 years.

Walt Alston who managed the Dodgers many years ago was asked to explain the appeal of baseball to Americans. He is quoted as saying, " Baseball is like church. Many attend but few truly understand." I think that is a dead on accurate description. Speaking as one who attends church and has read and studied to try and foster an understanding of religion,  baseball is similar. There is strategy in what is going on between the batter and the pitcher, between the base runner and the hitter, the pitcher and the catcher, the base coaches and the runners, the in-fielders and the out-fielders. You can't explain it, you have to just feel and experience it.

The Merry Acres, a bird and the cleaners

It is such a beautiful day here in Florida's capital city that it causes me to reminisce. I go back in time about 25 years to a beautiful spring day. I was in the pharm business and was on a business outing to the Albany, GA area. As was my custom I spent the night at a Quality Court independent motel called the Merry Acres. I always stayed here because they remembered my name and more importantly they had a great restaurant.

I had scheduled a hospital display at Phoebe Putney hospital. That meant that I had to get up early and be at the hospital at 7:00 AM. I had just finished a lovely breakfast and on my out the door to my car. I had done this many numerous times before. However, today I was sporting a brand new three piece suit. It was cream colored. I had purchased it on sale from Gayfers department store. I had a nice blue shirt to go with it and matching tie and I had to say, I liked what I saw in the mirror.

I felt great. I was 43-44 years old and was in pretty good shape, happily employed, happily married and loved what I was doing for a living at that particular moment in time. I could not wait to get in front of my customers on that day. How could they resist my sales pitch, when I was looking so good?

Out the door, passing under a beautiful dogwood tree in full bloom. I could almost hear the Disney movie theme music playing " Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. Everything's coming up roses. Everything's going my way !" All of a sudden I felt a splat on my right shoulder. Looking with horror I saw that a bird had evacuated its alimentary canal all over my suit. My day went straight from bright and lovely to dour and gloomy immediately. You could tell from the residue that this bird had been glutting itself on some lovely blue berries of some variety. I could even see the seeds from its most recent meal.

I was livid. I spewed forth a lengthy string of sailor talk and my day had immediately gone from sunshine to spit.I acted like a 5 year old throwing this little singular tantrum. I was going to be late. My new suit was ruined. I might as well go home and forget the day. You could see the steam pouring from my well coiffed hair. Then I spotted my salvation. A dry cleaner. He had just opened his door. I made a veer straight to that door from the site of this travesty.

I walked in the door to inquire if there was assistance for me. My thought was that I could just leave the coat and go on to work in a shirt and tie and come back for it later in the morning. Before I could even open my mouth the dry cleaning professional took one look at me and doubled over with laughter. It did not cure my ill slated frame of mind. Just before I could unload my pent up anger on this person, whom I had not ever met, he looked me in the eye and began to apologize to me. He said that was just a ridiculous sight to see this so early in the morning.

He then said, " Hand me your coat, sir and let me see what I can do." I did so. He disappeared around the corner and was back inside 5 minutes. The mire from my suit was totally gone. It smelled a little funky but it looked brand new again. " How much do I owe you ?" said I as I put on my coat and looked at my watch. He said that he felt so bad  about laughing at me that he could not charge me a penny. I could not believe how quickly this chain of events had reversed itself.

Since the bird dumped on me to the time my coat was clean again was under 15 minutes. A bad situation in my personal world was made right by the simple act of a very nice person. I, to this day, do not remember his name. Yet here I sit 25 years later, recalling that event which taught me a valuable lesson once again.
There is simply no reason to react dramatically at what seems to be a disastrous event. Short of a diagnosis of terminal illness or the news of a death of a friend or loved one, most everything is manageable and reversible. Patience and being able to laugh at yourself is at the core of being able to survive.

Numbers are getting Dumber

Did you ever stop and think of what a numbers driven society we are? I remember back to my college life. Yes, that was back in the hey days of the 60's. There was a group named Three Dog Night who sang a song entitled, One is the Loneliest Number. You know the song. It had a haunting melody with a compelling beat. I always thought it meant something to the effect of being alone, without being in a relationship. Then some of my drug culture friends told me that it meant only smoking one marijauna cigarette. The joint was often referred to as a number. Everyone knows that it takes more than one to get you where you want to be.

Nowadays people are fixated by the FICO ratings. You see countless ads on TV advocating using their free service to get a free FICO or credit rating. If you are north of 800 then you are amongst the chosen ones. You are given a well oiled pathway to burying yourself in more debt than you can possibly ever imagine. You can then be just like elected members of Congress happily engaged in that pursuit. If you are below 600 then you  are a marginalized person unworthy of buying the least thing on a credit account. Some lies are enmeshed in this message. The first lie is that ad on TV doesn't tell you that you have to give their organization your credit card before you can get their free report. If you have just enough purchasing power on your card they do indeed render you a free report. However, they will hit you with a bill for each month you stay around on their service if you forget to cancel the service. The great lie is that your general esteem is soiled beyond redemption if you have a lower FICO rating. I know that this is just not true. I work with people all the time who have lower FICO's who are good people, better than most. They have lost a job, had health problems, divorced and had a myriad of other circumstances that are often beyond their control. You do not need a blistering high FICO rating unless you want to buy something on credit. There are lots of people who pay cash for just about everything. That approach to living renders the FICO to a benign and meaningless reflection of such a person.

How about IQ? Anyone who ever took psychology 101 knows that the intelligent quotient is assigned by a standardized test created by psychologists. Did anyone ever meet a normal psychologist? That aside, an IQ of 100 rates you as an average thinker. As you go up the scale then you are considered to be more talented in that regard. I believe if you are over 140 then you can apply to be in Menssa. That is a club where people sit around in little groups and pontificate about how extremely intelligent they are. As they do that people like George Bush or Barrack Obama are out becoming the President of the United States. This number helps you to get into the gifted programs in the varied school systems around our land. I remember visiting one of my daughters at their lunch table at elementary school in about the fifth grade. That was before they found out that I had a low IQ and they generally loved having Dad come to lunch at school with them.

There was a little girl at the table who introduced herself to me in the following fashion: " Hi, I am Mary and I am gifted." That meant that she had been identified by a standardized test, assigned a higher number on her IQ portion and was in the gifted program. My daughter, although precious to me, was in regular classes unworthy to be classified as gifted. My daughters are now in their mid thirties. They have little non-gifted children of their own. I watched Mary over the years. She became an alcoholic, drug addicted, unwed mother and actually has done time in the county lock up. My regular school girls have college degrees from major universities and can converse with just about anyone. They are both smart enough to be stay at home Moms with husbands who go out and fight the dragons of life and support them. I am proud of them. I have no clue what their IQ number is and could care less. I know mine and it would impress most people. However, I have never found a way to put it in the bank.

Phone numbers have gotten completely out of control. Everyone 6 years and up has at least 7 phone numbers in their homes to have to remember. Add in Alpha-numeric passwords, credit card numbers, Social security numbers and on and on and on and on it is just overwhelming.

How about age? Now there is a serious number. It can be too low or too high in the judgements of the people around you. Do you really believe that Methusaleh lived to be over 600 years of age? Is it just possible that there could have been a different manner of defining years or that there is a loss of credible translation along the way? You hear all the time that age is just a number. Frankly, I do not want to live to be 600. I am having a hard enough time with being 67.

Now here is a number for you.............666. It is biblical. As a matter of fact it is referenced in the very last book in the New Testament. Revelations 13. The writer describes a time in which there is a pronounced battle between good and evil. Satan is described as a beast. The chapter describes the fact that the beast can be wounded but never killed. Much interprettion has been given to that number 666 and what bearing it has on the evolution of time in this fallen world in which we live.

Now here is the overall most obsessed over number of them all...........................your weight ! How many billions of dollars are spent in this country relative to that number? That being said, I have to go eat lunch.
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Five Lessons Learned in 2013

Here we are in a new year. I will turn 68 years of age in 2014. You would think that lessons in life would be harder to come by. Not so, they occur every day. It is hard to limit this list of lessons to just 5. I did 10 last year and I admit that reading that post put me to sleep.

LESSON ONE: Stay on Top of your Business

I have been practicing real estate now for 11 years going into my 12th. I have just completed the worst year in my personal history. I had a 30 year career with DuPont and was very successful. The first ten years of practicing real estate were more than I could have hoped for. I sold more than $15 million in that time frame. I earned some significant extra pay in those years. Now I come to the conclusion of a dismal year. I have thought about it and I conclude that you must stay on top of your business. Some of the downturn is just pure serendipity. However, some of it is my fault. The truth is that I played too hard in 2012 and others who were more hungry and more proactive took my share of the business. The solution? Get back on top by planning, communicating and implementing. I will turn it around. The old saw " If it is to be, it is up to me !" lives right here.

LESSON TWO: Your doc does not always know. You know your body better than he or she.

I worked within the medical industry for thirty years. I interacted with many physicians. I learned one important lesson about all of them. They are human. In saying that, I am expressing the fact that they are fallible, lazy, disinterested and progammable. I use this one example. I swallowed Pravachol for probably ten years. I am smart enough to know that I need to be on a lipid lowering modality for the rest of my life. I developed a pain in my collar bone area. I thought it to be unusual and I attributed it to straining the muscles there picking up my cherubic, but fat little grand children. On a visit to my physician of 15 years, I expressed to him that I was having neck pain. I also told him that I thought it was musculo-skeletal and most likely caused by the Pravachol. Afterall that is listed in the prescribing information as a common side effect. All he heard was neck pain and picking up fat little grand children. He wanted to give me a nuclear stress test immediately. I told him no way that was happening. All I needed was to change statins or get off of them totally. He would not hear of it. Solution? I took myself off of Pravachol and switched to another statin. Result? The pain went away competely. I reported this to him on a subsequent visit. Result? He still wanted to get me into his cardiologist buddy's nuclear stress clinic and most likely into their cath lab. Result? I got me a new doc and I have been happy as a clam ever since. I also might add, very well cared for as a result of the change.

LESSON THREE:  Jail ain't cool.

I refer to an earlier post to this BLOG about the jury duty I served back in January 2013. I helped send a graduate teaching assistant with a Master's Degree on his way to a PhD to jail for more than 5 years. His crime was soliciting a minor child for sex using the internet via computer. The evidence against him was just overwhelming. I saw him, his girl friend and his mother hang their heads and cry uncontrollably when the sentence was pronounced. The thought that experience left in my mind was that no crime is worth the risk of ending up in jail. Jail ain't cool.

LESSON FOUR: Change is REAL.

My wife and I have perfomed a labor of love for the last three years of our life. That is giving child care to our little grand daughter while our son and daughter-in-law worked. She showed up on her 7th week of life at 6:30 AM and went home at 4:30 PM until she was almost three. We listened to her enunciate her first words. We watched her take her first steps. We watched her grow more beautiful every day. She loved us and we loved her back in geometric proportions. One day our son announced that he was taking a job in a city 400 miles to the south of us. The process to accomplish that move took two months. We put her into a car and delivered her to her new home. We then drove home without her. That was almost 6 weeks ago. Our hearts are still tender from the separation. Sure we have 6 other grand children but this one was special because of the nurturing we provided her. She has a wonderful mother and father. Our hearts are starting to heal a bit because we are busy with life. We have Face timed with her numerous times. Her parents update us almost every day with pictures and videos. She is now in day care. From all indications a good one. We are starting to believe that we will survive the change. The lesson is re-learned. Change is constant and sometimes very, very difficult.

LESSON FIVE:  Death is a certainty.

A morbid lesson re-learned. I suppose that it is a matter of chronologic progression that you have more and more friends and acquaintaces and family leave you behind and go with God. This past year I helped bury a dear friend of 40 years of age who had very special needs. His parents grieve still and we all miss him. I despise the pain and hurt that his parents feel especially. I helped memorialize a dear friend of 30 years who was 82 who had been the victim of Alzheimers. Her death was a blessing most especially to her. Yet those that are left behind grieve her and miss her. We lost a dear friend and neighbor. He was my friend of many years but he adored our little grand daughter, Bellamy, I am pretty sure more than me. I saw and spoke with him on a Friday. He brought some satsumas to his little friend, Bellamy. He, knowing that Bellamy was moving, queried me as to what was he going to do when Bellamy left. And then, as fate would have it, he died the following Monday of a cardiovascular event. He was 79 and lived a most wonderful life. However, as is always the case we who stay behind in this fallen world struggle on without him and miss him. I also have dear friends whose son, 37, put a pistol in his mouth and ended his own life. He left his wife and a 3 month old baby. The sadness of that event is indescribable. I also sat across a table and negotiated a business deal with a very nice man who I had not ever known. I could tell he was ill. I would not ever begin to think that he would die in sight of two months. Annette Funicello left us this past year. I BLOGGED about that earlier. The realization is that life is very fragile. We live moment to moment. We should do our very best to control our interaction with others because of that fact. Let kindness and patience prevail in all that we do.

Medical Marijuana, in case Oxycontin isn't doing it for you

I suppose if you live long enough you will have seen just about every liberal and demeaning piece of legislation there is roll through our state houses. Now we come to the legalization of marijuana in Florida. Apparently our chameleon friend and former Governor, Charlie Crist, is all about prescribing the benefits of Tetra Hydro Cannabinol (THC). As a morphed Democrat now he is all concerned about end stage cancer relief and glaucoma patients. Doesn't it just warm your heart? It is fitting that one of the foremost ambulance chasing law firms in the state, Morgan and Morgan, is squarely behind him.

I will admit that probably 9.9 people out of every 10 in Florida most likely light up a joint a couple times of month. It is extraordinarily common. However, it remains on the Florida statutes as a no-no. For my  money that should remain the case. There are far too many impaired people driving our highways presently. Do you really want to aid and abet more people in that regard?

Florida would become the 21st state to join the ranks of those who allow people to be prescribed marijuana for everything from glaucoma to fibromyalgia. However, guess what, prescribers can already dispense THC. Under the current DEA guidelines THC is a class 1 scheduled, controlled substance. Which means that a licensed prescriber can use it in an experimental fashion on a patient right now.

I promoted a product branded Percodan for many years. It is a schedule 2, controlled substance and is most likely the most qualitatively effective pharmaceutical product for pain available. The generic name of this product is Oxycodone. You have to go to the needle to find something that will make your pain go away more effectively. Along came a delivery system that got it into your blood stream a little better in the form of Oxycontin, marketed by Purdue Frederick. It was marketed to oncologists primarily for pain associated with cancer. Fast forward a few years and you see a glaring problem all over the country. Pill mills in various Florida locations have sprung up everywhere so the prescriber can make money and the consumer can get high. Many people die as a result of this widespread problem.

Back in the 70's there was a drug called LSD that the drug culture used to abuse.Lysergic Acid Diethylamide was used to induce a psychotic state in laboratory animals so that antipsychotic agents could be assessed as to efficacy. PCP, phencyclidine HCl, was used as an animal tranquilizer. The drug culture discovered it and it became a widespread problem. People are weird about looking for the next magic elixir. Now you make THC more available and what do you have? A bigger and wider generation of zombies to drive domestic disputes, fill up the emergency rooms and populate the pshyciatric hospitals.

The Florida Supreme court just approved a measure that will put it on the ballot in November. Those who vote will decide whether or not it is a good idea to put medical matijuana into the hands of Florida citizens. Polls indicate that such a measure would pass by 80% or more.

The apostle Paul did his own poll. He said in 2 Timothy 3: 1-4: " This know that in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good."

So the world is ripe for medical marijuana. May the God of heaven help us all.

Log on to Craigs List and Lose Your Soul

I have had an interesting experience over the last 2-3 weeks. I have had a piece of rental property for lease and decided to post it up on Craigs List. I had great return with numerous calls and interested parties. However, for the number of interested parties I had an equal number of indecent proposals. I made the mistake of adding my e-mail to the post and had to endure being the target of phishing operations.

They all came to my e-mail in-box at odd hours of the day and night. They all sounded the same. The net result was that someone of the female persuasion was interested in me and that I should log on to a web page or call a phone number to pursue the relationship. Some even had unsolicited photoes of themselves in thier signature section or attached to the e-mail with anatomically correct images of their anatomy. Or rather someone's anatomy. I doubt that the phishers were all that attractive.

It made me recall a debate I once saw a brief sketch of between Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt. As you may recall Jerry Falwell was the minister of the church in Lynchburg, VA who founded the Moral Majority. He was very prominent on the minister circuit. Larry Flynt was the publisher of Hustler magazine which was pronounced pornography. The encounter I saw had Flynt inquiring of Falwell how he could refer to his magazine as pornography when he admittedly had not ever read it. Falwell responded that he did not need to take the lid off of a sewer and stick his head down into it to know that it was a sewer. Score one for the preacher.

I sat on a jury sometime back in which a young man had contacted what he thought was a 14 year young girl for sex. His point of contact was, you guessed it, Craig's List. We found him guilty and he ended up facing a 5 year prison term for his pernicious activity facilitated by Craig's List.

What a shame that an internet service so widely used and successful as Craig's List should be used by the nether world of the morally and ethically challenged to trap well meant people.

Caveat Emptor indeed. You could lose your freedom, money and possibly your soul for taking the wrong turn on Craig's List.

Smack me in the head, PLEASE !

I am intrigued by the new direction in football. All of a sudden you have to be very careful how you hit someone. Otherwise you can be assessed a targetting penalty and be ejected from the game. That is just peculiar on the merits of the awareness.

I remember being knocked unconscious on a football field when I was about 15. That is the only time that I have ever been unconscious outside of balanced anesthesia. No one expressed any concerns for that episode in my life. I am not sure that my parents even knew that I was unconscious. The coaching staff wanted me off the field so they could continue the game. The referees wanted the same thing. I do not think that there was even a penalty assessed for someone knocking me out. As I recall I was doing the tackling and I hit someone incorrectly and the lights went out. Shortly afterwards I gave up football in favor of baseball and basketball.

Now, call me old fashioned, but is it not a part of playing football that you are going to get hit on occassion? Furthermore, you are coached to hit quickly and efficiently to stop the offensive player from gaining yardage at your expense. So nowadays you have to process the hit a little more deliberately. As you process that decision your opponent may run over you, possibly knocking you out, and scoring a TD on you. However, there is no penalty assessed for that occassion.

I am mystified. No, I am kidding. I am not mystified in the least little bit. You have to back up this sequence of events to incorporate the tort system. All of this concern for the safety of the players is tied to the series of successful law suits being brought against the NFL and the NCAA for player injuries. You see, football is a business first and a game second. You get a couple of multi-million dollar awards to consider and you have to react. A hefty judgement can eat into the revenue produced by your football team pretty quickly. Therefore, the leagues have sanctimoniously reacted in grave concern for the safety of players. Bull feathers ! Where were they 52 years ago when I was knocked out? Simply stated my getting knocked out in a JV game being played in Union, West Virginia was not relevent. However, had I been knocked out on a playing field in Death Valley in Clemson, SC before a national audience now that is a potentially crippling tort action.
That could negatively impact revenue flow into the ACC.

It is almost like the tobacco tort actions of twenty years ago. It is not about if I have the lack of judgement to chain smoke unfiltered Camels for twenty years. It is all about my capability in having done so, to hire an immensely talented and slimy law firm. All that has to be done is to make the case in front of a jury as to whether my poor judgement is at issue or not. The makers of the product put me at risk due to their negligent manufacturing process.

It would seem to me that if I did not want to get knocked out then perhaps I should spend my time in the stands eating hot dogs and ogling the cheerleaders. If I don't strap on pads and a helmet and go out and line up against Jadavean Clowney then I am most likely going to be in safe harbor.

The same goes for getting in the ring with Mike Tyson. How come we can continue to condone men, women beating each other up in a boxing arena and not unnecessarily change those rules? Answer is simple. That is certainly an assumed risk. The lawyers down at Velociraptors, PA, have not worked out the legal approaches on that one.......................yet.