Tuesday, October 31, 2006

don't get me wrong, I love baseball

I hope I didn't give the wrong impression yesterday. Baseball has always been my favorite "team" sport, I've played it almost all my life (from 5 to 45 . . . then my arm went out). But I gave up on professional baseball after the first strike and about the time the O'Malley's sold the Dodgers. I became difficult to know what next year's team was going to be since free agency allowed for the continual breaking up of teams.
Now here's the catch to my love hate . . . . I enjoy high school and college baseball more than ever. There you have teams!!!

Now here are some things I think which might help pro Baseball get some fans back . . . . with respect to the World Series. Have the WS at a neutral site where they have good weather! And lastly . . . there's no need for every "non-baseball minute" to be filled with hystrionics, fireworks, cheerleaders, etc. It's okay to have some down time between batters and innings . . . . puleeez?

Monday, October 30, 2006

has Baseball lost it?

Now don't get me wrong, I still love baseball but . . . .

It hasn't been that long since the World Series was decided but here are some interesting observations, people won't even watch baseball in high definition from their family room couches anymore. This year's TV ratings for the final game were the worst ever and less than half of the ratings 15 years ago. There are way too many commercials.
Remember when you used to sneak your portable radio into class; put in your desk, keep the volume low and then put your head on the desk so you could pretend you were napping and listen to the World Series game? It didn't matter who was playing it was the best teams playing on the grandest of stages.
Remember when people cared so much about the World Series that the smallest paper in the land would devote a weeks worth of rich stories about games? Last Saturday's Louisville Courier-Journal, a venerable publication in a town that is only a 4 hour drive from St Louis covered the entire championsip in one small wire service story with only 6 paragraphs on the front page!

I'll follow up on this post with another tomrrow . . . .

Sunday, October 29, 2006

"Mission accomplished!" GHW Bush . . . . huh?

let's see how many days since the "mission was accomplished"? . . . . well, we're approaching 1300 days. doesn't seem like much has been accomplished.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Thinking . . . . or not

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices." William James

Being something???

most people believe they must do something to have something to be something, that's not true. being something is totally up to you.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

American's owning their homes

an interesting piece in Forbes compared some statistics over the last 40 years, the most interesting to me was the % of American's owning their own homes. I would have guess that today we are are some himalayan peak but not so . . . .

Home Ownership Percentage

1965 63%
1975 68%
1985 64%
1995 65%
2005 69%

Source: St. Louis Fed

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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Silence

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Politics

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
- Plato