Baseball Musing

In a recent email to my father, a big Cardinals fan who grew up following the "Gas House Gang" of the 1930's, I mentioned that Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners was on a 27 game hitting streak, which broke the earlier team hitting streak...also set by Ichiro. I guess I jinxed Ichiro by writing about his hit streak. He was halfway to Joe Dimaggio, who set a 54-game hitting streak back in 1941, if memory serves me correctly. Dimaggio's record is considered one of the most unbreakable records in baseball. After last night, looking for his 28th straight game with a hit, he's now tied with half the league with a new hitting streak of zero. The game went into an extra inning, so he got an extra at-bat which he used to strike out to end the game. Oh well. The bad part of the game was that Minnesota won on a Little-League type error in the top of the 10th. With two outs and a runner on second, the left fielder had what should have been an inning-ending flyball clang off his mitt. Apparently, he's not making enough money to be able to catch, yet.

Speaking of Mariners, I was going through some old pictures and came across this one.

Amidst people with things to sell outside the ballpark, there are often people begging for money. You can give someone money thinking you're helping them get something to eat when in reality, they just take the money to buy alcohol or drugs - things they can't get for free at a food bank or homeless shelter. This guy I found amusing because he was total truth in advertising. It's kind of hard to tell from looking at the picture, but the guy is holding a fishing rod. Attac

hed to his line was a white styrofoam cup which is blocking my right forearm in the picture. That was his "hook,"hoping to catch some money. Like all true fisherman, he had a lure as well, which is the sign just over my should that says "FISHING FOR BEER." So here's a guy dedicated to telling the truth. He's not pretending to be hungry or homeless - he is promising to spend your money on beer. So it made for a fun picture...and the guy didn't get any money from me. It was his personal Beer Stimulus Plan, but at least, unlike the Federal Stimulus Plan, a person would really have a pretty good idea where the money was actually going to go! Unless of course the guy was actually going to use it to purchase a work of fine literature. Nah, I don't think so!

PS, as I'm writing this post, the Mariner game is on the television, and Ichiro already has two hits. If only...