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.

Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction

I'm late in posting this, but congratulations to the 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class in Canton, Ohio two weeks ago today, on August 2nd.  While I've lost interest in the National Football League, due to its business practices and monopoly, I still have the utmost respect for these players who are among the best to ever play the game.  The 2025 class includes Defensive Back Eric Allen, Defensive End Jared Allen, Tight End Antonio Gates and Wide Receiver Sterling Sharpe.

By clicking the links for each player, it will take you to their induction speech.

Jared Allen

Sterling Sharpe

Eric Allen

Antonio Gates

We've Lost Our Mom

I am going to try and keep this factual but the fact is I am grieving.  We lost our Mom on July 19th and it has been a tough two and a half weeks.  I touched on her fall in my last post in July.

She was in excruciating pain the last two weeks of her life and the medical community did very little to alleviate that pain. I will always hold the hospital where we took her in high contempt.  The nurses were compassionate at times, but the doctors did little for her and unless I demanded to speak to them would not make any effort to give us an update on her daily condition.

Mom was with her family as she celebrated her 98th birthday on July 18th in the hospital.  She was in a lot of pain but did not want people worrying about her.  She was happy to be surrounded by her extended family from her kids to her great grandkids.  She died the next day of an apparent heart attack.  I don't believe her body could take it any more and her heart wore out from the pain and the medications she was on for other illnesses.

We buried her yesterday with our Dad at the National Cemetery here.  The funeral was tough to take and so was the graveside service. Still, I know her soul is with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in Heaven.  As a Christian we will see each other again on Judgement Day.  I know that my Redeemer Lives!

Congratulations to the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025

Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has honored the best of the best once again.  At this year's ceremonies and induction the Hall welcomed its 2025 class of Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner into baseball immortality.  Sabathia, Suzuki and Wagner were voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Allen and Parker were voted in by the Classic Baseball Era Committee.

I count myself extremely fortunate to have seen Allen, Parker, Suzuki and Wagner play in person. Allen played for my beloved St. Louis Cardinals at Busch II in 1970. I saw Parker play several times over the years when the Pirates would come to St. Louis.  I was able to see Suzuki play at Busch III due to interleague play when the Mariners would visit the Cardinals.  Billy Wagner was on the hated Houston Astros when the Cardinals and 'Stros had a heated rivalry.  We didn't like him much as Cardinal fans, but deep down I secretly admired him and thought he would have made a great Red Bird.  I never saw Sabathia play in person but I did on TV and he was everything he was cracked up to be.

Voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year in the broadcaster's and writer's wings were Tom Hamilton and Thomas Boswell respectively.  Hamilton is a favorite of mine, whom I first listened to on XM radio starting many years ago and now listen to on the audio channel of MLB.TV.  Mr. Hamilton is the most under rated play-by-play guy in the Majors. He is old school and reminiscent of Vin Scully.  They are similar in that Hamilton does it all.  He handles the play-by-play, the commentary and all of the stats.  Hamilton is everything I would want if I were able to hire the PBP guy for a baseball club.

Boswell won the Baseball Writers' Association of America Award given for Meritorious contributions to baseball writing.  He was a writer and columnist for the Washington Post and spent 37 years in D.C. from 1984 to 2021. He's also written seven books on baseball and is still interviewed frequently by other journalists.

This year rather than write more about each inductee I have located their induction speeches and listed the links below.

Dick "Richie" Allen  Speech by Mr. Allen's widow Willa Allen

Dave Parker  Speech by Dave Parker, II, son of Dave Parker

CC Sabathia

Ichiro Suzuki

Billy Wagner

Tom Boswell   

    (the link for Boswell and Hamilton is the same as they were inducted on 7/26/25)

Tom Hamilton

Congratulations to all seven of these gentlemen!