Ah, sweet relief!
I need a break from the absurdity that is our government at the moment. I need something to hang my hat on that is based on the truth that is right in front of us. No alternate facts.
Baseball.
It’s Opening Day and a little sanity returns to the world. Remember that all of the craziness and angst of the past six months happened when there was no major league baseball being played. See what happens when you take away baseball?
It’s a simple and clear cut affair with nothing but the facts running the whole shebang . Three strikes and you’re out. The ball clears the fence and it’s a home run. The team with the most runs wins at the end of nine innings. And since they instituted video reviews of tight plays the only time that opinion comes into play on the field is with the home plate umpire’s calls of balls and strikes.
And unlike certain politicians, it’s a game of humility and instant karma. Blowhards, big mouths and boasters get brought down on a daily basis. Remember that this a game where one of the greatest batters of all time, Ty Cobb, failed to get a hit at the plate about 65% of the time. Reggie Jackson might be Mr. October and in the Hall of Fame but he has more strikeouts than hits in his career.
Ultimately, you put up or you shut up in baseball.
And it’s back today and I feel my anxiety leveling off. My rhythms are righting.
Play ball!
I thought for this Sunday’s music I’d play a little song from Sister Wynona Carr, The Ball Game from 1952. Wynona Carr was a multiple threat, singing r & b, rock and roll, and gospel. She added the Sister to her name when she was in that gospel mode. She never achieved a real breakout in any of her genres and after contracting tuberculosis in the late 1950’s she sunk into obscurity. She died in 1976 in Cleveland at the age of 53.
A sad story but she left us with some good music including this song, which was included in the recent Jackie Robinson biopic, 42. Give a listen and watch a couple of innings. It’ll do you some good.
Redtree Times 
Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio? Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away. . .
As a child, my brother suffered from severe asthma and was not allowed to play out of doors very much. He used to take modelling clay and lay out ball diamonds on the tile floor of our den and play imaginary ball games with his little green plastic army men. This was back in the days when ball games were first being televised with commentary by Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese.
We used to set up ornate ballparks on the linoleum floor of our bedroom using boardgame boxes as the walls. We would set out our favorite players on the field at their normal positions. It was called spitwad baseball because we used a tiny ball of paper , slightly dampened with spit to keep its shape. One of us would roll the ball to the other who would flick a pen ( we had a couple of souvenir pens shaped like bats) and it the spitwad landed on a card it was an out. It was a game we played for hours on end. We didn’t get Dizzy Dean in our area but I sure wish we had. I was big Cardinals fan as a kid.