Sunday, 21 August 2022

Aug 22, 2022

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” ~ John Lennon

I woke up this morning at 3:58a to a call of nature but was able to fall back to sleep until my alarm went off at 6a. I play in a Wood Bat Baseball League on the Naperville Yankees. I’ve mentioned this previously of course. Yesterday was supposed to be the start of our best of three first-round playoffs. Unfortunately, we were rained out. I was fully expecting to play today, but we received word from our manager that today’s game was postponed as the field was unplayable. All dressed up and nowhere to go as they say.

My wife Debbie and the older of our two daughters, Colleen were in Wisconsin visiting an old friend and her family; our younger daughter, Kathleen was in Denver for a good friend’s bachelorette party. Our son, Michael doesn’t live at home, so calling him at a little after 7a was out of the question. I decided some breakfast was in order and made a shrimp, red pepper and mushroom omelet with mozzarella cheese and a farm stand (The Farm. It’s one of our pitcher’s business, Jerry Smits. Excellent produce and great people) tomato garnish along with some whole wheat toast. Excellent meal. Now what?

Well, I emptied the dishwasher and loaded my breakfast dishes. Read for an hour or so. Sent some text messages, read, and responded to emails (exciting stuff, huh?), put away my baseball equipment and uniform and laid down for about 20 minutes. It was getting close to 11a and since I couldn’t play baseball, I figured I’d watch the White Sox game. Our AT&T cable has been out since Thursday and the soonest they could have a repairman out is Monday at 2p, don’t get me started on THAT. Now even though I hate that MLB is now putting games on alternate services and streaming apps, I felt fortunate that today’s Sox game was on Peacock. Navigated the Firestick and found Peacock, the Sox and Cleveland were in a “weather delay” so I stared at my 75-inch screen which had a picture of the infield with the tarp on it, superimposed photos of Dylan Cease and Jose Ramirez underneath and listened to the stadium music until the game was called due to unplayable field conditions. Sound familiar? Side note, I find it ridiculous that a major league ground keeping crew couldn’t get that field playable in a couple hours. I know Roger “The Sodfather” Bossard would have had Comiskey playable. Just my opinion. So, now what?

Well, since I was on the Firestick, I tried Netflix and one of the first movies I saw listed was “42”, which I had seen in the theater when it came out and loved. My next two hours and nine minutes were set. “42” is the Jackie Robinson (played perfectly by the late Chadwick Boseman) story and it brought tears to my eyes when I first saw it and did again today. My baseball fix was mostly filled. If you haven’t seen it, consider viewing it at your earliest convenience. Powerful movie. Branch Rickey is played by Harrison Ford and does a superb job. Excellent line delivered by Pee Wee Reece (played by Lucas Black), “Maybe one day we will all wear 42. That way they won’t be able to tell us apart.” Again, I teared up big-time. Did he really say it, or was it fictionalized? Some accounts say Reece said it with his arm around Jackie in Cincinnati at Crosley Field 1947, or it could have been in Boston in 1948 and yet another account has it happening in 1951 but has Dodger outfield Gene Hermanski saying it. All told, it’s still a classic line.

By the time the movie was over, everyone was home, and life went on. My plans changed but worked out well. A day in the life of a blogger. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about today and quite frankly I wasn’t up to a ton of research, so this seemed appropriate. Hope I didn’t bore you.

Before I forget, a happy 103rd birthday to Sister Jean Delores Schmidt, BVM (Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) of Loyola University. She is a Catholic nun and the chaplain of the Loyola Ramblers men’s basketball team here in Chicago. Keep up the good work Sister; wishing you continued health and happiness.

(Sister Jean of Loyola University. Found on the internet. Assuming Public Domain.)

~ Coach Mike

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