Another summer gone by, another summer I didn’t learn how to swim. Can’t blame anyone but myself this time. I only dipped into a pool once, despite Ken’s entreaties that he had not yet completed his self-appointed task of teaching me to frolic in deep water.
I didn’t ride a bike again, either. And from the following headline my reluctance has been validated:
“Meijer Stores Recalls Bicycles Due to Fall Hazard”.
The accompanying report said pedals were detaching or coming loose during use, 29 times, causing 16 minor injuries. I stopped riding some 10 years ago, not because my bike was coming apart, but rather because I kept falling.
Softball Update: One more game in the regular season coming up next Sunday. We’ve won three games so far (out of 15), which in this league qualifies for the playoffs because, believe it or not, there’s a team more challenged than we are, and all but the last place team gets into the post-season.
I’m not a Roger Clemens fan, but it’s nice to see a geezer trying to make a comeback. I can advise him from personal experience it’s no fun discovering new injury points. My left knee, which I sprained during the last inning of one of our early wins two months ago, still bothers me and now seems to “crack” all the time, especially when I turn sharply to the left (I know, don’t do that, but it’s hard not to when the staircase to upstairs in our home veers left at the raised living room landing).
As long as we’re talking sports, the NY Yankees lost again today, 4-3 to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yanks’ lead over the Baltimore Orioles is just 1 game, just 2-1/2 over Tampa Bay. A month ago New York had a 10 game margin.
Throughout the year it’s been either home run power for the Bronx Bombers or futility in hitting with men in scoring position. Though they knocked in three today without the benefit of a home run, in the critical ninth inning when trailing by the tie-breaking run given up in the bottom of the eighth, they twice failed to drive in the tying run in from second and then third base.
Even more of a problem is their batters have come up with an imperfect solution to their puny performance. Over the last month they’ve had so few hits that they place relatively few runners in scoring position.
Age coupled with the long baseball season seem to have caught up to too many of their players. I can't blame injuries. All teams have them. But few teams are as vulnerable to being tired at this time of the year as the Yankees. I am getting myself mentally prepared for October baseball without pinstripes.
Horse of a Different Color: One of my conservative buddies during the Olympics sent me an email about Ann Romney’s dressage horse. Here it is:
“So the Romneys are selfish for keeping a horse?
- Employing a groom with a family to support
- Paying for feed that’s sold by someone with a family to support
- Transported in trucks by someone with a family to support
- And manufactured in a factory by people with families to support
- From stuff that’s grown by farmers with families to support
- And having a barn built by construction workers with families to support
- With materials trucked by drivers with families to support
- From factories with workers with families to support.
“Sounds to me like that one horse has done more to put Americans to
work than that horse’s ass in the White House.”
Can’t fault those conservatives for not being imaginative in their attacks. Here’s how I responded:
“By that reasoning passing the massive Obamacare bill gave work to all those lobbyists, all those typists and collateral people who trucked the bill to Congress, all the commentators who wrote and talked about it, etc., etc., etc., and their families.
"In the end, Romney’s horse was like him. All show on the outside, but soft inside.”
