Since returning from New Orleans, The Youngest has finished a Summer Wooden Bat season that culminated with his catching most of a hot double header last Sunday, Middle Son has been home for an eight-day visit and safely returned to Louisiana, and I've begun providing interactive marketing services for my new client in addition to my day labors at the KnockingShitDownCo. Sometimes it all goes so fast it's hard to give mind to the dialogue that slips into and out of my consciousness, beyond hastily recorded fragments in the ever-present small notebook, seeming so profound at the moment of the scribbling but flat and empty, without their original flesh, later.
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The summer baseball season was uneven, although The Youngest played very well, given the level of competition. He caught most of the season, and caught well. He also ended up being one of the better hitters on the team. It was a pitcher's league, as we used wooden bats, and it was the quietest ballpark I've ever been in, even when we had two games going at once. There just wasn't all that much offense. I have to think, though, that when these kids go back to swinging metal bats for their respective teams this fall, they will find their bat speed, and therefore their hitting skills, seriously improved. There were seven teams of mostly college-aged players, with only a handful of rising high school seniors. In this picture of his team with their coach after winning in the first round of the playoffs (short-lived joy) there are six players who either played, are playing or will be playing next year, college baseball, and two players who, in addition to being in that group, were also taken in a MLB draft. Pretty cool. He should be fairly easy for you to pick out.
There was an interesting article in the New York Times (SportsSunday, July 16, 2006) entitled "An Issue of Life or Death" that profiled a series of serious accidents, some of them fatal, for which the "pop" of the ball coming off of a metal bat was thought to be a contributing factor, if not the actual cause. Most of these injuries were to pitchers stuck in either the chest or the head by a line drive hit right back at them. This is an injury of which I've been aware for many years, as a parent and coach, a league administrator and a Little League Baseball official, but I was not aware of the frequency of these injuries among high school and college players, nor with the notion that they are "caused" by the extra pop of a metal bat. The article states:
Between 1991 and 2001, 17 players were killed by batted balls, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Eight involved metal bats and two involved wood bats. In seven instances, the kind of bat was not documented.
Many leagues and schools keep defibrillators near the fields in the event that a player is struck in the chest, which can stop the heart, but there's not much you can do for a line drive to the head, beyond call 911 and pray. I don't know if having high school and/or college players return to play with wooden bats is the answer, as some are apparently proposing, but it sure would change the game. My player pitches from time to time but is usually behind the plate and covered in protective gear. Now and then (last Sunday) some linebacker lookin' fellow with a hundred pounds on him will decide to (illegally) bowl him over (and flip him up and around) in an attempt to break up an out at home (but he held onto the ball - heh heh), and ends up getting thrown out of the game. I wonder how many kids are seriously hurt in collisions. Athletic endeavor can be dangerous.
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I've been watching and wondering when skinny legged jeans would come back in style, knowing it was inevitable once women my age (and *gasp* some our mother's ages!) started wearing longer, wider bottomed jeans. We were finally shamed into it after SNL skits about "Mom jeans" and Oprah started preaching the aesthetic virtues of lower, longer and wider. Well, of course, no self-respecting young woman or teenage girl wants to wear the same style jeans her mother wears, so, I'm hearing that skinny legs are back. Hmmmm.... where did I put those "Mom jeans"?
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I know I've sworn off politics in this blog recently, and that only a few of you remember the fervor with which I wrote during the days leading up to the last presidential election, which also turned out to be the days leading up to the complete collapse of my personal world, but what's going on right now is disturbing to me in an odd way. We have seen diaspora in this country and watched how difficult it is for those who leave to return home once the crisis has passed, especially when the crisis crumbles the foundations of a community or society, disrupting services as well as safety. Lebanon is evacuating, massively, and for the life of me I can't understand why Israel would want any and all who are sympathetic to their cause to leave Lebanon. Won't this leave the country solidly in the hands of their enemy, virtually delivering Lebanon to Hezbollah, since they will be all who remain? What am I missing? Whatever their reasons (and I've heard many, and many of those I've heard sound completely valid), I have observed that the events that are transpiring between Lebanon and Israel have, perhaps rightfully, almost wholly occupied the mainstream media (in this country, if not the world), eclipsing not only the war in Iraq but the continuing story of New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast as well, deflecting attention from incompetence becoming obvious. *Sophmom pauses to wonder if that might be... Naaahhh... then she ducks*.
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In my quiet blur of business, boys and baseball, I've tried to keep up with the fine blogs I read, and to comment now and again, if not always in a timely fashion. There seems to be a whole lot going on with many of those whose blogs are linked in my gutter, and I want you to know that those of you who are vulnerable or sad or in crisis, remain in my thoughts and prayers, even if I'm not getting around to everyone as often as I would like. I promise I will try to do better (more?) in the future. The little break between baseball seasons should help some. I am also hoping to go back to New Orleans in late August for the NOLA bloggers' Rising Tide Conference. Visit the link and you'll see how far these fine people have grown their grassroots organization to try to shine some light on what's happening in New Orleans, promoting the truth and putting actions behind their words. In addition to this conference they are organizing to try to mount a show of solidarity on 8/29, the first anniversary of Katrina's landfall, commemorating the tragic man-made flood that followed the storm in New Orleans. If you are a blogger interested in participating, please email me at soph_mom@yahoo.com. Also, mark your calendars for August 21st, when Parts 1 & 2 of Spike Lee's documentary "When The Levees Broke" will air on HBO. Those of you who are in New Orleans can attend a free premier Wednesday, August 16th at the New Orleans Arena (ticket information available on the HBO Documentary home page).
In his recent post "The View From Under the Volcano" (in reference to Malcolm Lowery's novel), Markus of The Wet Bank Guide writes:
The Dutch have shown how to live with the sea. In 21st century America, as long as the oil-and-gas and the port are on line, the lives of the rest of us--simple, disposable cogs in the great economic engine--are of little consequence. We can be as easily relocated from our homes as pallets of product, should accounting dictate. What we have is not a civilization but an economy, one that is overtaxed by debt and war, that has no cost center to which to bill the saving of its soul.
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Finally, on this day twenty-five years ago The Husband... and I were married. It was a beautiful wedding, and from it we have these three perfect sons, but it was never much of a marriage. I am grateful every moment of my life for these amazing children, but the two years since The Husband... and I have been separated have been the happiest I can remember and I'm beginning to feel almost like myself again.
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I've been emailing with a woman who's selling her electric wheel and her small kiln.
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Peace, out, ya'll.
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Addendum: Making the rounds of blogs this morning (okay, I'm, for the moment unsupervised at the KSDCo), I learned over at Ray's place that yet another Katrina victim's body has been found, according to the T-P, "It was the 28th Katrina body found in New Orleans since March." I'm having a hard time getting used to the New Version of the United States of America.
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Second Addendum: From Jeff Master's Blog at Wunderground.com: "It now appears likely that Chris will enter the Gulf of Mexico early next week and be a threat to the Gulf Coast. There is a trough of low pressure that will be moving across the Eastern U.S. on Monday that may turn Chris more to the north; high pressure is then forecast to build in on Tuesday and force Chris back to the west-northwest. Given this forecast, there is no region of the Gulf Coast that can assume Chris will miss them."
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*sigh*
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