Steinfeldt to Evers To Chance

Religious celebrations of spring to the rear thank you. The true renewal of life, of faith, hope, and belief comes tonight.

The long winter of our admittedly smug contentedness is over. Tonight Jon Lester will throw the first pitch in anger since Madison Baumgarner coaxed a foul pop up into the glove of Pablo Sandoval on a near Halloween night in Kansas City.

Baseball has returned. Some things are right with the world.

Today every team is undefeated. Every player bats 1.000. Every pitcher has a 0.00 ERA. It is the only moment of perfection for a game predicated on the need for failure. It's a moment to stop and cherish before it whiffs into the ether.

That's one of the many reasons I love baseball. It's not just about the great ones. It's about the not so greats, the barely remembered,  the never remembered. The mediocres and the failures are as much a part of the mosaic of the game as the superstars. For every Buster Posey there is a Steve Decker. Actually there are more Steve Deckers than Buster Poseys. For every player celebrated in story and song there are hundreds who toiled in anonymity, remembered only by those who memorize the Baseball Encyclopedia.

It's doubtful you recognize any of the players in the photo below, but three of them are the most famous double play combination in the history of the game. Tinkers to Evers to Chance. The names dance across the tongue as nimbly as the men danced across the infield and through the poetry of Franklin Pierce Adams. So who's the guy on the far left? That's Harry Steinfeldt. The third baseman. I'd have to check, but he probably was involved in as many double plays as the other three. Ah, but his name didn't scan well and his stats were not as note worthy as the others. Still he hit .268 lifetime and played in four World Series (yes, I got out my Baseball Encyclopedia to check). Nowadays you'd get seven years and $140 million for that. Yeah I'm looking at you Pablo. Oh, and Steinfeldt holds a record that might be the very definition of journeyman ballplayer. He had three sacrifice flies in one game. That's a record that has stood since 1909. It ain't flashy, but it was what was needed at the time.

So as the season winds it's way through spring, summer, and into the fall, take a moment to appreciate the "other" guys. They are as part of any fan's memories as their more famous teammates.

Play Ball!

The Land of God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy

So the other night I was watching Bill Maher's show and he had on as one of his guest former Govenor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was there to flack his new book called "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy". The book is so named because the purported author claims that is what he replies when he is asked where he is from, the "land of god, guns, grits, and gravy".

Forgetting for a moment that true to his political nature Huckabee can't give a straight answer to a direct question, he went on to define his little corner of the earth as being where civility rules the day, where people ask after your kin folk, have manners, and care about the next fella. Maher chided him that people in California or New York also care about the next guy, but Huckabee countered that he was trying to bring his form of civility to the rest of the country because his was a truer form.

Someone needs to explain to this jackass that there aren't different forms of civility. You either are civil or you are not. Civility does not mean merely asking after someone's family or that person's health. It means actually being concerned with the answer to the question. It means opening up your heart and having compassion for what the other person is going through. It means that not only do you truly care about that other person, but that you want to make sure that no one is ever subjected to the slights, put downs, or out right discrimination that person is or was subjected to. It's about making sure that everyone, everywhere, is treated with respect.

You see Mr. Huckabee we in those states you mock as having no civility in fact have greater compassion for our fellow human beings than it appears the state you hail from has. We aspire to a higher state of civility, one where the color of ones skin, or where they are originally from, or who they choose to spend their life with is of no matter. We in the "destination states" (as opposed to the "fly over states") wish to live in a world that doesn't see diversity as an anathema, but rather as a strength. That's why we take the time to enact laws that make civility a component of justice, a rock in the foundation of society.

So when you and your compatriots on the conservative side of the aisle look to sow distrust and hatred among the population by creating laws that say go ahead and refuse service if you have a personal problem with someone different from you, I have to tell you that you are not being civil at all. You are not standing up for any principle of civility that is recognizable. And hiding behind religion as the bulwark of your excuse simply demeans religion and shows a narrow mindedness that no religious person or institution should abide.

In short Mr. Huckabee and Governor Pence and all the others who defend these laws, your so called civility is nothing more than lip service. Please don't presume to lecture the rest of us on how uncivil we are - it just rings false.