In just a month we’ll begin year sixteen of Press Pros, and a reader brought it to our attention this week by asking…what’s on your mind to write about if you weren’t writing sports?
August 10th is right around the corner, and another anniversary for this site – one that no one ever believed would last so long back in 2010.
Certainly, the banker never did, and more than a few people in media at the time who questioned the commitment of the original cast to pump out daily what now numbers more than nine thousand posts, not counting this one.
I’ve written it before, but I can’t write it enough…my appreciation for those people – Hal McCoy, Chick Ludwig, Jim Morris, and Dale Meggas. And shortly thereafter, Julie Wright, who eventually would become an associate editor and photographer. Hal and Julie still remain.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and the Buckeyes for Press Pros Magazine.
We’ve written about a lot of things and a lot of events over the years – mostly sports, of course. But sometimes we’ve ventured into other interests and perspectives on life’s irritants, that like yourselves, one endures and simply wishes there was someone with which to share the frustration.
To that point, a friend and reader wrote last week to remind us of the anniversary date…but also to ask, “I wonder if there’s ever something other than sports that you guys would like to write? No one thinks about sports all the time. I would be interested.”
He also added: “I can’t tell you how much I enjoy Hal McCoy. The Reds aren’t what they used to be, but Hal is.”
Denny, your suggestion is timely. We’ve discussed it, and each of us will consider, individually, over the next thirty days something we’d like to write that isn’t who won, and how. So, you might have something to anticipate that’s a little different.
Personally, I’ll share a few thoughts relative to one of life’s irritants, and a phrase that I first heard my father say when I was a teenager that haunts me every year on April 15th.
My dad was a Bible believer who dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s. He was simplistic, and a pragmatist. And I know that he learned from his own father to be proud and responsible about paying his federal income tax – his duty as a citizen.
Every year as tax day approached, as he signed his check to the government Dad would remind me of the verse from Matthew that reads: “Render to Caesar that which is is Caesar’s.”
I received my property tax bill the other day and I thought of him; because he’s been gone now for fourteen years and the world he left he wouldn’t recognize if he could see it now – government, leadership, the mess – so far from that which he knew.
He wouldn’t watch network news.
He’d be horrified at the corruption associated with lawmakers.
He would shake his head over a national debt of 35 trillion dollars.
He would ask…what kind of fools would spend money they don’t have like that?
He would be 96 today, and I wonder if Dad would still say with such pride: “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”
If you asked him…he’d say we’re not getting our money’s worth!
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I can’t help but leak back into sports because the MLB all-star game is tomorrow night, and you might be surprised to hear that I probably won’t watch it – haven’t for years.
Reason?
It reminds me too much of P.T. Barnum. A lot of vaudeville…with a side order of baseball!
And frankly, as much as I love the roar of the grease paint and the smell of the crowd…I’m not entertained.
I’ve always maintained that the respective managers should pick the teams because they’re the ones who know the players best – those who deserve the honor.
But for years the fans have picked the starting lineups as a marketing ploy by MLB. I’ve sat and watched as they filled out the ballot before, many knowing as much about baseball as I do about neutering a cat. It’s strictly a popularity contest and I suspect there’s been more than one all-star voted in for a half season’s play that hasn’t graced the game since.
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The Home Run Derby is questionable, don’t you think? Because all it is is what you’d see if you were allowed to watch batting practice. Players swinging for the fences with a time limit, not an ‘out’ limit, as it used to be. What it is is an endurance race against soft pitching, and that’s just truth.
The game, itself, takes too long. Too many sideline reporters…and too many memories of Jim Gray.
And of course, there’s so many teams in the major leagues now that it’s impossible to be familiar with the respective rosters.
There was a time when all-stars stayed with the same team for years, making it easier to know the matchups in the All-Star game. You watched expecting to see the very best of the best – Koufax, Clemente, and Mays – against Mantle, Ted Williams and Nolan Ryan. Free agency fixed all of that decades ago.
Ted Freakin’ Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived….
Or, wait to see Hunter Goodman get to pinch hit.
Who?
Exactly!
Hal McCoy will disagree with me, but we live far enough apart to where we won’t come to blows. And it doesn’t matter. We’ve both already lived to see the best that will ever play the game…because you’ll never again see someone pitch seven no-hitters or strike out 5,000 batters.
No one will ever win 300 games again.
And don’t ask me about the Hall of Fame.
Harold Baines?
Really?
You’ll have to ask Hal about that one.
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