It seems as though in the local sports scene everything is either wrapping up or just starting. Youth baseball and softball are all but over; youth soccer is just beginning practice. Men’s and women’s softball have pretty much concluded their summer seasons and focusing on beginning their fall seasons. The Rage, well, God bless ‘em, we all know what happened to the Rage. The River Otters are about two months away from opening their 2005-2006 season. Due to inability of being in two places at once I have failed to give the Rascals any coverage at all, but am looking to correct that problem. No, sports-wise, all is well, and rather quiet.
Last Tuesday evening while watching the Cardinals’ new phenom pitcher, Anthony Reyes, earn his first major league win, in a rather impressive style, I might add, I could not but help of thinking of the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” I am of course making reference to the fashion statement made by Reyes, pants legs up high; hat bill as flat as a pancake. I really did like his pants legs. It reminded of how most major league player wore their pants when I first started watching baseball. Now, it seems, most players wear their pants down below the ankle even. I for one don’t like it. Did you know the Cardinals are one of the few, very few, who have stripes on their stockings? Same socks wore by the 1964 Cardinals. Probably even before that, but I remember 1964. Few players show their stripes at all. But Reyes wore his pants in the old school fashion and his stripes were out in all their glory. That’s the “best of times.”
“The worst of times,” anyone who watched the game knows I have to be talking about his hat! I understand old school vs. new school – but please keep the schools separate. I am not sure his hat is even new school, its more like something out of a BET music video – flat as a pancake. I thought for sure the next thing he was going to do was turn his hat to the side of his head and pull out a bling-bling the size of a hubcap. Some reports the next day went so far as to say he irons his hat to make it that flat. Am I out of line here? Let me know, please.
One person who I do think is out-of-line, and I am going to speak politically for a moment (sorry family Almus) is Chucky Boy from the other publication. In one of his recent columns he all but says he is a republican, and the nation should stand behind the current president with unconditional support. Sorry Chuck, ain’t gonna happen – and more importantly it shouldn’t happen. Speaking of republicans, the behavior of the St. Peters’ Board and Mayor, republicans all, mind you, reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Mississippi Burning. Now, before anyone suggests it, I am not comparing the G.O.P. to Mississippi in 1964 – not even close, but in one scene, in the movie, as the F.B.I. begins to unravel the case of the murdered Civil Rights workers, the F.B.I. agents says something along the lines of “The rats are beginning to turn on themselves.” As I watched the republican spokesperson on television call for the dismissal of the republican Prosecuting Attorney, thought of the line.
And while on the subject, is it not pretty much a given, the reason for the recent success of the G.O.P., locally, regionally and nationally, due to their successful recruitment of the Christian right wing. Is not the attack on Mr. Morrison centered on his behavior dating back to 2000 and beyond? Is that being forgiving? Personally, I don’t care one way or the other, but a political party that suggests “you’re not Christian if don’t vote for Bush,” certainly seems hypocritical at attacking someone for sins committed five years ago and longer. Come to think of it, Bush himself seems to have had some similar problems. No, “rats turning on themselves,” seems a rather applicable quote in this matter.
Lastly, and by far, most seriously, prayers from the McMurran family to the family of Marta Baier, who was killed recently while jumping from her vehicle as the accelerator stuck. Mrs. Baier was employed as a kindergarten teacher at Fairview Elementary School in the Jennings School District, the same district in which I teach. With out going into rhetoric, I think its safe to say she had to face and deal with problems beyond most of the readers of this publication’s wildest imagination. Teaching anywhere is tough; teaching in Jennings presents some very unique challenges. From what I have been told she faced them every day with a smile on her face. To her survivors: she truly made the world in which her students lived, a better place.
