Happy 2026!

Happy New Year!

2025 was a mixed year for me. Our Mom passed away in mid-July and I'm still grieving her death.

But, in early November I experienced the joy of going back to Europe for a ten day vacation. We visited Portugal and Spain and I am learning to embrace the slower approach to life and living at a slower pace than in the United States. I also found a spot I could move to and become an ex-pat. I will go into that in a future post.

I hope 2026 is your best year yet yet and brings you health, peace, joy and happiness!

Merry Christmas 2025!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  - Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!

Another Long (and Sometimes Boring) World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers wrapped up the 2025 World Series last night with a four games to three win over the American League Champion Toronto Blue Jays. Last night's game was exciting as the two evenly matched clubs played eleven innings to decide this year's championship. Unfortunately, it was another one dimensional game in which the game was decided by home runs.

I've written of the times of World Series games for the last several years. But, I'm not going into the length and boredom factor of each game as in years past. Here are the actual times of game for each of the seven in the 2025 “Fall Classic.”

Game 1     3:13
Game 2     2:36     This was the most snappily played game of the series.
Game 3     6:39     This was an 18-inning game. Had it been two games, each would have been long.
Game 4     2:54
Game 5     3:02
Game 6     3:02     Yes, it's the exact same length as the previous game.
Game 7     4:07     The game went 11 innings.

All together it was 1533 minutes of baseball. Not all of it was good when nothing happened at the plate due to walks, strikeouts, or hit batsmen. To put it another way, it was 25 and a half hours of  “America's Pastime.” Or, to put it another way, over a day of your life was gone if you watched every single game and every single pitch.

Rather than ignore the time the extra innings added to Game 3 and Game 7, I've calculated the average length two ways. The actual average time of game was 3:39. But, if recalculated using an average time per inning, the number is 20.716 minutes. Then, when that average per inning is multiplied by 9, it results in a time of game of 3:06.

While both times are still way too long for me, it's better than it had been before MLB implemented its time clock to speed up play. It's helped, but now the Major League Baseball powers that be need to go back to the drawing board and shorten the time between pitches.

Random Thoughts in the USA Midwest in the Middle of October

It's raining! Finally, it's raining! Where I live in the Middle of the United States it's been a beautiful fall. We've had daytime highs in the low 80s and night time lows in the upper 50s and low 60s. It's been terrific except for one problem. We haven't had any real rain in over six weeks. I've been watering my garden and bushes every other day. With the nice days the tomatoes have continued to roll in every day. But, as I look out the window now, it's finally raining. Glorious rain! Thank God for small favors!

The rain has motivated me to write a bit since my beloved Missouri Tigers football team is out of town this weekend. The team is now 5-1 having suffered its first loss last weekend in Columbia to a good Alabama team, 27-24. Missouri could have won the game but shot itself in the foot several times and the errors ended up costing Mizzou a win.  Tonight the team is in Auburn, Alabama to take on that breed of Tiger. Mizzou is a one and a half point favorite according to the so called experts.

-Have you been watching any of the Major League Baseball playoffs? I haven't. But, then I never went to a game all season and never watched an entire game on TV including these boring playoffs. MLB continues to focus on the long ball at the expense of other facets of the game. MLB promotional types continue to screw up at every turn. I've written in the past a monkey could do a better job. It's amazing to me how whenever MLB makes a decision its the wrong one. Keep it up MLB and you'll kill the Golden Goose.

-Just to be fair while I haven't watched an entire baseball game all year, I've not watched an entire professional football game either. The pros could care less about me and will never earn my loyalty again after having dumped on me twice when my home town teams moved away to other cities.

-There are some other things I could write about politically where I live. But, I'm not going to change anyone's mind with what I write and they won't change my mind if I let them respond to anything I write. It is what it is. And speaking of off limit topics a friend of mine has a sign he puts up every year at he and his wife's NFL Championship party.  It reads "No elections, no genuflections and no erections!"

Have a great weekend and I will write again soon.

-

Missouri Tiger Football Off to a Great Start

If you read this blog frequently, you know I'm a big fan of college football and specifically the Missouri Tigers. Mizzou is off to a 3-0 start, beating up on cupcakes Central Arkansas and Louisiana (the team formerly known as the University of Louisiana at Monroe).

The Tigers also had a huge win over their archrival Kansas nine days ago on September 7th. The Tigers got down 21-6 ten minutes into the game and then clawed their way back to a 21-21 tie at the half. Missouri dominated the chickenhawks in the second half, outscoring KU 21-10. In the last 50 minutes of the game, Mizzou outscored Kansas 36-10. Mizzou ran away to win the game 42-31.

Mizzou will take its undefeated record into this Saturday night's game against South Carolina (2-1) at Faurot Field in Columbia at 6 p.m. CDT. ESPN will show the game nationally.