Is it just me? Besides the hair, do these guys look alike? Both puppets, both have sawdust for brains, neither have morals. . . The only difference between these two is that one ran for President, and the other is running for President. Of course it may be the pain pills I’m on from experiencing the land mine explosion in my mouth that my Dr. lovingly and expensively called a root canal. . . . in that case, never mind.

 Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

Most moviegoers and all purist baseball fans over 30 years old know who, or rather what, Wonderboy is. It is the bat used by Roy Hobbs, aka Robert Redford, in the 1984 sports flick “The Natural.” As the story goes, Hobbs father was killed by lightning that also felled an ash tree from which Hobbs hand carved a bat that he used to become a prolific hitter and baseball hero. Great story and wonderful movie! Maybe I’m the only one interested in both the evolutionary history of the baseball bat and what part it played in the growing up of this “aged kid”. If so then I’ll be satisfied with having a good time writing what follows. If not, and the following is interesting to you, then I’ll be pleased.

During the mid 1800’s, the early years of baseball, players carved, or had others carve, their bats from various wood species. Bats took on various shapes; flat, oval, long, short with each being unique to its owner and protector. The protector part was important, because a broken cudgel meant extensive time with ax and knife preparing for the next game. To bring uniformity to the game during the years leading up to 1869, rules as to size of the bat were developed. They could be no longer than 43 inches and no wider in diameter than 2.50 inches but could be as heavy as desired and nature would produce a wood from which to carve.

Bat production changed forever in 1884 when Louisville Eclipse’s star player Pete Browning broke his prized bat in the middle of an important game. In the crowd on that fateful day was John Hillerich….if you are a baseball aficionado you probably just said Ahha, in recognition of the name. After the game John took Browning back to his father’s woodworking shop and literally “turned out”… on his lathe…a new, perfectly formed smooth bat for the thrilled player. A legendary bat company was birthed on that day. Frank Bradsby , a junior executive in the company was later made a partner and the manufacturer of the Louisville Slugger , Hillerich and Bradsby went on to become the premier bat company of all time.

Changes have taken place over the years, some quite significant. In 1893 the maximum diameter was increased to 2.75 inches. Other bat companies sprang up over the years; Spalding and its Mushroom Bat in 1897, Wright & Ditson, Athens Georgia’s Hanna Bat Company with its Batrite in 1911, Rawlings and later Adirondack, maker of Bobby Thompson’s bat with which he hit “The Shot Heard Round the World” on October 1, 1951 to defeat the Dodgers in the NL playoff.

In the 1950’s “bottle bats” with large grips used by Nellie Fox, Richie Ashburn, Ted Kluzewski and the great Jackie Robinson were quite common. They eventually gave way to the thinner and more whippy handles used by Yankee greats Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Wooden bats have remained much the same for the last 50 years.

Over the last half decade there have been three notable exception to the somewhat standard ash wooden bat. Adirondack attempted, unsuccessfully, to market a laminated bat some fifty years ago. Minnie Minoso, one of only two players to play in the Major Leagues in five decades, had a bat made of banana wood. Baseball lore contends that if broken his bat would “heal” overnight when he soaked it in water. In recent days maple has been used instead of ash by some non-traditional makers. Maple bats are now undergoing a high degree iof scrutiny because of the danger the present to as they frequently shatter and fly indiscriminately toward players, umps and fans alike.

The most notable and lasting change occurred in 1970 when the metal bat was introduced, first to softball and later to youth, high school and college programs and also to some levels of the professional game. The “crack of the bat” was being challenged by the “clank of the bat”….UGGHHH!

The two main differences between comparable wood and aluminum bats are weight and breakage…and breakage means money. Cost is the only thing that keeps them around today because they do bring an added level of danger to the game. The lighter weight makes bat speed greater and that’s what causes balls to be hit harder, faster and further, thus increasing the chance of defensive players being injured by a batted ball.

Bat breakage, however, provided me a great learning experience during my youth. Bats were hard to come by, therefore, we treasured and protected them. If you owned one you were truly “the man”. You were included in any game because you had the stick. We were taught early to “keep the trade mark up” when we hit. This caused the ball to be hit on the grain’s edge because the trade mark was placed flat to the grain by the manufacturer. We always watched a hitter to make sure he gripped the bat properly so as to protect it from breakage. They would, however, invariably break and leave us with a dilemma….find another, quit the game or fix the crack.

My Father learned from his youthful days spent in poverty during the Great Depression, to fix most anything with very few tools and even fewer repair materials. He taught me to pry the crack open, put some wood glue in it, place 1-3 screws in key locations to draw the crack closed with a screw driver….batteries not included…or required, tape it tight with electrical tape and let it cure. Was the bat perfect…NO. Would kids today go through that time consuming process…NO again. Consequently today’s youth miss a great deal because of their access to an expanse of equipment born of affluence and lack of ingenuity fostered by the same. Before you paint me with the “it was better in the good old days” brush consider a few things. Today do you ever see bats, gloves and baseballs left lying around or in the yard to get rained on? Probably…but not so at my childhood home! Dad didn’t have to tell us to protect our much used equipment either….we knew its value. A ball stolen by a stray dog, or soaked by rain or a warped bat postponed or called off the game. This was not good! Have you ever taught your son to sew up a baseball, fix a cracked bat or sew the strap on a mask? I bet not and……. I rest my case.

Hopefully the circuitous route I just traveled did not diminish the true intent of the story. What I learned from a broken bat and my Dad sticks with me even today. I still live by Dad’s adage of, “fix it up, wear it out, use it up or do with out.” Thanks again Dad.

You can now listen to Just Talking It Up 15 in the player on the left sidebar of the blog, or on iTunes!

One potato, two potato, three potato, four . . . my mama told me to vote for . . .

That’s about what it’s come down to for some. Will Crash help Janet get back on the RIGHT track? Will Hillary sell her support to Obama? Why does Obama defend his wife so fiercely without real cause? These answers and MORE on this weeks Just Talking It Up episode.

Send feedback to: feedback@justalkingitup.com!

I love yellow golf shirts! I can’t deny it…wouldn’t even try to. I’m hard to buy gifts for…..don’t need much to make me happy. If I need something, which is infrequent, I buy it for myself. This simple trait, born of a pragmatic Father, doesn’t endear me to my family because I bring frustration to their loving desire to please me at Christmas and on my birthday. But they always know that a yellow golf shirt is a safe bet. No matter how many I have, a new one brings a smile to my face and a warm feeling to my heart. For a long time I couldn’t answer their chiding questions about my seeming fetish for this garment…I just knew that each one was special to me. Then one day the mystery became a mystery no more…..I realized what made them so important to me and it made all the sense in the world.

I was a very industrious child, always looking for a way to earn a buck or two, or rather a quarter or two. For two quarters I would cut your yard….with a push mower, including edging at the sidewalk with a hoe. For a dime I’d ride my “wheel”, as my next door neighbor called my bike, to Wray’s Grocery Store to pick up bread and milk for you. Have desire…will work, that was me.

My Dad knew the head of the City Recreation Department in my town and also knew that he liked to hire young boys to take care of fields for the youth baseball leagues. Let’s see…baseball, work, making a buck or two doing something you like….sounds good to me! So my Dad introduced me to Mr. Johnson who shook my hand and gave me my first real job. Ten dollars a week for ten weeks work…..here I come John Paul Getty! It was great fun and profitable too.

Each week I would put one dollar in my church offering envelope and nine dollars in my bank account. I didn’t need any gas…didn’t have a car…couldn’t drive…I was too young. Bike transportation was good enough, and cheap too. Well, as the weeks rolled by I saw a shirt in a local “dry goods store” that really looked good to me. I thought about it for weeks and when I got my last check I cashed it, took $1.98 from the proceeds and bought that beautiful shirt with a collar and two buttons in the front. Oh yes…its color was a beautiful solid yellow. It became my Sunday church shirt. I wore it proudly for years. I sure wish I had kept it. What I did keep was the memory of it and what it did for me. It made me proud of buying it myself, with my own money, earned from my hard work. So, when I wear a yellow golf shirt now, in some strange way and probably subliminally in the deep recesses of my mind I feel the successful accomplishment of a 13 year old snotty nose little boy. Is that important to me…you bet your life it is.

Leave it to someone smarter than I am to post such a strange question on the poll. No hints as to WHO posted said question, just know it weren’t me!  It took me back the first 84 times I read it. I suspect (from the emails and phone calls and hey you questions I’ve gotten) that you were/are perplexed as well. I’ve asked. There IS a correct answer.

Just guess. That’s what I did. . . .

I will ask the author . . . for anonymity let’s call the author of the poll ’Stash’. . . not his real name. . . . anywho, I will ask the pollster to ’splain in a later post.

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

Our Father raised my brother and me to play and love baseball. Our younger sister, being thoroughly immersed in conversation about the intracicies of the game and forced to watch her brothers play, grew to also appreciate the national pastime. Most all who have played baseball for any period of time have developed an understandable, albeit strange, fascination if not love, for the tools necessary to play the game. I am a prime example of one whose glove from childhood is one of my prized possessions. It’s tattered, somewhat dried out, but still perfectly formed for catching a sharp line drive or a hot grounder hit back up the middle. The difference from years past is that in my mind I still see myself performing these feats but my body brings reality to my dream rapt thoughts. Now days it’s all I can do to protect my manhood from a sharp line drive from the plastic bat of a three year old grandson.

But I still love my 50 year old “rag” bought in 1958. It is a Rawlings XPG3 infielder’s glove! I used it to catch fast pitch softball for years. My brother then played 4 years of college baseball at Tennessee using this masterpiece of glove making skill. Years later one of my son’s played shortstop for 4 years at Furman University, making All Southern Conference in his Senior year, also using “Ty”, as my glove had come to be affectionately known. Ty has come full circle as I now use it when I pitch to my grandkids. Ty is again useful and happy.

Over the life of the glove I have had it completely reconditioned at the Rawlings factory three times. Each time the deerskin lining was replaced, seams were re-sewn and laces replaced where needed. The last time I sent it back for refurbishing, the factory rep offered me any glove in the Rawlings catalog if I would let them have Ty for their museum. This was an offer I couldn’t refuse…….but I did. Once you name a glove you surely can’t discard it. It would be like giving away a child. Had I weakened and made the proposed trade, I would most likely have been banished to baseball purgatory. But since I remained strong…..my decision was never in question….I can still sit here tonight in my recliner , pounding my fist into this leather relic and dreaming of diving to my right like Brooks Robinson in the ‘69 series, backhanding the one hopper and throwing to Boog Powell at first. Yeeeere Out the ump sings out. I may be a relic too, just like my glove, but I can still dream like a child.

In a 5-4 vote on Wednesday June 26, 2008, another day that will go down in infamy, to borrow an FDR phrase from our history, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that duly elected representatives charged with guarding the most vulnerable among us cannot put child rapists to death. The five liberals on the Court - Anthony Kennedy (72), Stephen Breyer (75), David Suder (69), John Paul Stephens (88) and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (75) formed the majority. Justices John Roberts (53), Samuel Alito (58), Antonio Scalia (72), and Clarence Thomas (60). voted to support the right and responsibility of elected officials to rightfully punish children subjected to this unfathomably heinous crime.

The liberals ruled that in the matter before them, the brutal rape of an 8 year old child that rendered her physically injured to the degree that major surgery was required and emotionally injured to the degree that will doubtless hinder her development and relationships forever, a death sentence was not “proportional to the crime”, and further “violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.”  In their written opinion the majority stated that “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society”,  prohibit states from imposing such a penalty on these vilest of predators.

Hear the words from the quotation above……EVOLVING….PROGRESS….MATURING…..these are the words of the liberal left who call themselves PROGRESSIVE! When you next hear the word PROGRESSIVE , remember what it actually means in the liberal lexicon.

Senators McCain and Obama condemned the decision….one because he has never waivered from this rightly held position, the other because he is in an election and trying to sneak toward the middle without being caught. I believe I can make this statement with conviction and accuracy because Obama has repeatedly told the Nation he would appoint jurists of the persuasion defined by the 5 who voted only moderate punishment for child rapists. Do not forget….Obama voted NO on Alito and Roberts! The 4 dissenters, Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, form the profile for those McCain has vowed to appoint. Also remember, McCain voted YES on Roberts and Alito.

The vote in November may well determine the social direction of this Nation for years to come! TAKE HEED AMERICA!

Take your time . . . . Just hum that old Sesame Street song . . .

“One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn’t belong
Can you guess which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?” . . .

Right! It’s AlGore! Just hangin with his peeps . . . you know, his homeboys . . .

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

Today I heard about the attack that James Dobson made on Obama for “distorting” the Bible as it concerns running a society according to the Old Testament. Let me say that at first blush, I would agree that using the Old Testament to make your argument against using the Bible as a societal guide, is really stretching the obvious. Certainly the Old Testament is looked upon much differently by the church in contrast to the New Testament and the ways of living that Jesus recommended. That much I can agree with. I CANNOT support James Dobson for making this an issue. Why?

Well, I may be somewhat jaded, but after studying more intently how much the evangelical movement has influenced politics as of late, I don’t see Dr. Dobson’s public disagreement (which was aired on his Focus on the Family radio program yesterday) as anything more than political positioning. Now that the Democratic party has their candidate, it seems MUCH too convenient as well as OBVIOUS that someone from the Republican camp would choose to use their platform with the evangelicals to attack the other side.

If Dr. Dobson had SUCH an issue with what Obama said, (which for the sake of time and space will not address here) then where was he before it became clear that Obama was the Democratic candidate? When Obama and Hillary were going toe to toe, where was Dr. Dobson on this issue? Oh wait, I know… Dr. Dobson does not ACTUALLY care about this issue. He CARES about the evangelical vote and WHERE it goes later this year. Let me be clear… If Dr. Dobson wants to promote himself as someone who “focuses on the family”, then I prefer that he focus more openly and honestly. Don’t pretend to care about something only when it is convenient to your cause, sir.

This may be an unfair comparison, but I remember all too well being befriended by many, only to find out that in the end, it wasn’t me that they cared about… It was my money, or my status, or my position in life, of the fact that I was older than 21 and they were not, or that I had a car and they did not, etc. Don’t waste my time. I can do that on my own. Let’s be friends because we care about the same things. Let’s be friends because we openly and honestly declare our motives and intentions. Let’s be friends because we TRULY do want to “focus” on our families.

I’m Just Saying…
Jay

Hardly. He’s not magic, nor is He a dragon or a good luck charm  for times of trouble . . . nor is He hiding, nor is He all things to all people. He is the great I Am. Grab a Bible and a chair, America . . . maybe a soft drink and some chips, and sit your fat-pampered-lazy-butt down and find out WHO God is. And stop answering questionnaires when you know little  if anything about the Subject. It confuses those outside the fold.

 A few statistics of my own in my own twisted logic style . . .I found this article 97%  more disturbing than 22% of poled Americans. It is said with relatively fluctuating certainty, that probably 0% of these 35,000 sat under the ministry of MY pastor at any point in their confused lives. It is however 99% conceivable that Rev. Wrong influenced some . . . or even most of some. . . . wow.

Let me just list a few of the clear as mud information from the ”Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life”.

“92 percent believe in God, 74 percent believe in life after death and 63 percent say their respective scriptures are the word of God.”

For starters, that leaves 26% that believe in God, but not in life after death. Is it just me?  Wouldn’t it make sense that 92% would also believe in life after death? And the difference between 63% and 92% is disturbing. Heck, it’s ALL disturbing!

“Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent “absolutely certain” of it.”

I’m sorry . . . what?

The bottom line is this. There is a quite telling statement in the article that says this survey proves that faith in this country is 3,000 miles wide and only 3 inches deep. That’s a little too generous. I’d say closer to a quarter of an inch on a good day.  Christians . . . WAKE UP!!!

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .