Scott Rolen Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Former St. Louis Cardinal and Philadelphia Phillie third baseman Scott Rolen has been elected to the Professional Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America.  He will join Fred McGriff this summer in induction ceremonies at the hall in Cooperstown, NY.  McGriff was selected to the hall by the Contemporary Era Committee.

I had the chance to watch Rolen many times at Busch Stadium II and Busch Stadium III, while he was a member of the Cardinals between 2002 and 2007.  Rolen was a good third baseman offensivly but I didn't think his production would land him in the hall.  However, he is one of the best defensively I've ever seen play the position.  While with the Cards Rolen played on two world series teams.  The Cardinals lost to the Red Sox in 2004 and then won it all against the Detroit Tigers in 2006.  Rolen was an integral part of both teams.

I hope Rolen will go into the Hall with a Cardinal hat on his induction plaque.  He played more years with the Phillies but put up better numbers with the Cardinals and was selected to four All-Star teams during his time in St. Louis.

He played a total of 17 years in the big leagues, seven with the Phillies, six with the Cardinals, parts of four years with the Reds and a partial season with the Blue Jays.  His career stats included a .281 batting average, 316 home runs and 1287 RBI.

Rolen and McGriff, who played for the Blue Jays, Braves and Rays, will be inducted into the baseball hall on Sunday July 23rd.

You're What?

There is an AM radio station in Saint Louis, Missouri that refers to itself as the "Sports Voice of America".  It's not.

KMOX Radio which for years has marketed itself as the Sports Voice of America has slipped badly since its heyday.  Currently the outlet has the broadcast rights for St. Louis' MLB franchise, the rights for a local college team in a mid-major basketball conference and is one of numerous stations carrying the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL.

My point is this radio station continues to promote itself in this fashion.  But, bottom line is while most St. Louisans were watching the NFL playoffs on TV, this so called sports voice was being paid to broadcast an investment information program for retirees.  But, that is probably appropriate since the stations market demographic is comprised of a large number of senior citizens.

Finally a Speaker of the House

After 15 tries the US House of Representatives finally has a speaker.  The house selected Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, California as its top dog after McCarthy made a number of concessions to opponents.

The speaker was elected just after midnight Washington D.C time.  I was able to watch the 14th and 15th votes and also watched a bully from Alabama come after one of his colleagues from Florida.  Mike Rogers of Alabama walked over to conservative holdout Matt Gaetz of Florida, yelling in support of McCarthy and was physically restrained by another member of congress from North Carolina Richard Hudson.  It was great theatre, but is also showed the emotion underlying the proceedings for those involved.  It also showed that there are idiots in the US house.

My thought is most Americans could care less who the Speaker of the House is.  They just want the government to function and make sure Social Security checks arrive on time and that services we've come to rely on continue to function.

In the process McCarthy is reported to have made concessions to Gaetz and other members of the Republican conservative caucus.  One of those is that just one person my call for the speaker's removal at any time.  Gee, I wonder how long that will take and how many times that will play out during McCarthy's tenure as boss?

0 For 14

The US House tried again and has failed again to elect a new speaker of its chamber.  Wannabe speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters earlier this evening he had the support to be elected speaker.

Looks like McCarthy and his buddies can't count.  McCarthy missed being elected by one representative who could have voted present, rather than voting for a different Freedom Caucus candidate.

As one of my friends put it, if you went 0-14 they would send you back to the minors.

Earlier I wrote of insanity in D.C.  For the first time tonight I watched CNN's coverage from Atlanta.  The inane comments and editorializing by CNN's so called experts is unacceptable.  I ended up turning off this liberal media outlet in favor of C-Span.  I should have watched C-Span from the start.  This outlet hasn't editorialized or speculated.  And the camera angles on TV in the House are also much better.

The insanity is also alive and well in Atlanta.

The Insanity Continues in Washington

The United States House of Representatives did it again three more times today and each time the result was the same as it had been the previous three days.  Kevin McCarthy of California wants to be the top dog in the chamber, but he still doesn't have all of the votes he needs.  I explained why the house continues its act of insanity in this post yesterday.

Thirteen tries and thirteen failures by McCarthy and his Republican cronies.

The lower chamber is scheduled to meet again in several minutes and McCarthy says he now has the votes.  For the sake of the citizens of the United States I hope he is right, but I also hope he hasn't given away the store to get the last of the holdouts in his party to vote for him.

The Very Definition of Insanity

The United States House is deadlocked and it hasn't seated any of its new members yet.  The House of Representatives still hasn't picked a leader.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, California wants to be the Speaker of the House but he doesn't have the support of the entire Republican party.  There are about 20 holdouts who identify as conservative that oppose McCarthy.  Since Tuesday when the speaker was supposed to be elected by the Republicans, who control the house, McCarthy's support has dwindled.

Meanwhile, the Democratic party is in lock step and has voted for its party's leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, New York to lead the house.  Just one problem, Jeffries and his party don't have enough votes to win the job without help from the Republicans.  And that won't happen in this house where  bi-partisanship is little more than a concept.  Apparently, there are no statesmen in the lower chamber.

So, after three days and 10 tries, there is no Speaker of the House.  Ten times McCarthy has been nominated and ten times he has failed.  Reporters claim McCarthy has made concessions to the conservatives in his party, but they aren't budging.

Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different end result.  You could logically conclude the members of the US House are insane.

Here's hoping 2023 brings you the best of everything!  Have a happy, health and prosperous New Year!