After a week of visiting and traveling to, with, and from kids and grandkids, I need a week off! Thanks for understanding! See you next Tuesday.
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There was no sport the nineteen-year-old [Jackie Robinson] did not excel in, making him a hero to many minority youths in Pasadena.
from 42 Is Not Just a Number: The Odyssey of Jackie Robinson, American Hero written by Doreen Rappaport Candlewick Press, 2017 There’s always one kid who is last to get picked to be on a team. When it came to choosing sides in sports, that kid was me. Kickball, field hockey, dodgeball, you name it, and I was last. I was okay with that, pretty much. I knew sports were not my best thing at school. I liked spelling bees and grammar challenges, but that’s a different story. As bad as I was at sports, Jackie Robinson was good. He set records in basketball, track, football, and even tennis in Junior High, High School, and Pasadena Junior College. At UCLA he competed in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field where he was a four-sport star. Jackie met his future wife, Rachel Isum, at UCLA where she was studying nursing. They were married after she graduated, just one year before Jackie broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. After his honorable discharge from the Army in 1944, Jackie continued playing sports, but until April 15, 1947, American Major League Baseball was segregated. As good as he was, as an outstanding athlete and as an outstanding person, he was shunned because of the color of his skin. When he played for the Kansas City Monarchs, a team in the American Negro League, Jackie caught the attention of Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He said of Jackie, “There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker and with better judgment than (Jackie) Robinson.” Ricky approached Jackie with a deal: They would integrate American baseball by putting Jackie on the Dodger’s team, but Jackie would have to accept the taunts, slurs, and outright abuse Ricky knew Jackie would have to face if he accepted the offer. The abuse was so awful that at one point, Jackie wanted to quit baseball. But he stayed, much to his credit and much to the support of his wife, Rachel. Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day every year on April 15. It commemorates the date in 1947 when Jackie made history in Major League Baseball with his debut game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1997, the League retired Jackie’s number, 42, throughout the Majors, and since 2009, all on-field personnel honor his legacy by wearing 42 during scheduled games. As stated on jackierobinson.org, “Since her husband’s premature death, Mrs. Robinson has used her ability and his legacy to further the causes they so ardently supported.” Together with Jackie, they provided young, black people with housing and opportunities through education. They were tireless in their social action. Rachel has also won many accolades in her own name. After earning a Master’s Degree in psychiatric nursing, she became a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Department of Social and Community Psychiatry. She was a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Department of Social and Community Psychiatry, then became Director of Nursing for the Connecticut Mental Health Center and an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Yale University. A year after Jackie’s untimely death from a heart attack and complications of diabetes, Rachel created the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a non-profit that provides college scholarships and leadership training. Through the Foundation, she’s able to continue encouraging young people and continue her social action work. In 1996, she wrote a biography of her famous husband called Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait. She has been awarded many achievement awards and eight honorary doctorate degrees from prestigious colleges and universities. A week from today, July 26, 2022, the Jackie Robinson Museum will open in New York City. Here's a list of the festivities featuring live music, a documentary screening, and a celebrity panel discussion. The museum’s three-fold mission: “To educate visitors about Jackie Robinson, the athlete, activist, patriot, entrepreneur, and family man. To inspire those interested in the history of social change and the prescription for greater progress. To challenge people of all ages to pursue a life of achievement and purpose.” will be achieved through 20,000 square feet of permanent and changing exhibits, artifacts, historical images and over 450 hours of broadcast quality video footage. Over 1,000 supporters, both large and small donors, have helped The Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF) and Mrs. Robinson’s campaign raise over $34 million. By opening the museum, the JRF “will [continue to] educate and inspire the general public around the ideals embodied in the life of its namesake.” And today is Rachel Robinson’s 100th birthday. Happy Birthday, Rachel Robinson! Many happy returns! -—Be curious! (and play ball) John scraped up a small piece of egg and put it into his mouth. It immediately became chocolate—chocolate white and chocolate yolk. Both lovely, lovely chocolate. “Mmm!” John mumbled. “Chocolate egg!” In almost no time he had finished every scrap of egg on his plate. Then he tried the bacon. The bacon turned to chocolate, too.
John had never before enjoyed his breakfast so much. from The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling newly illustrated by Margot Apple HarperCollins, 2013 (originally published William Morrow Publishers, 1957) Today, July 12, 2022, would have been my dad’s 105th birthday. We always celebrated with chocolate cake covered in chocolate frosting, and topped off with a scoop (or two) of chocolate ice cream. Dad loved chocolate. His favorite was milk chocolate. Mine, too. But I also like those little semi-sweet chips that give chocolate chip cookies their name. I like hot cocoa, cold chocolate milk, and a crisp chocolate bar. I like creamy chocolate and gooey chocolate-covered caramel. Chocolate-dipped strawberries, marshmallows, cashews…mmm. I got sick once after I ate the chocolate-covered graham crackers my mom sent with my lunch at camp. I think I was coming down with the flu, but, ever since then I avoid those. Last Thursday, July 7, was World Chocolate Day. It occurs every year on the same date. It’s been suggested that July 7, 1550, was the date that chocolate was introduced to Europe. I couldn't verify that, though. The Aztecs and Mayans were the first to use the cacao bean in food products. Evidence of cocoa-based food dates back many thousand of years. Shortly after Columbus’s adventures in the 1490s, stories about lands that flourished with flora, fauna, and golden riches tempted Spanish Conquistadors to cross the ocean to see for themselves. They plundered the land and the people in their quest to conquer, and by the way, discovered the cacao tree and its bean. Cacao beans were cultivated and used by Mesoamerican civilizations who predated the Mayans. The beans were removed from their pods, fermented in containers and laid out to dry. Then they were ground, mixed with water and various other ingredients like chile peppers, flowers, vanilla, and honey and stirred into a thick, bitter, and foamy drink. Although the Aztecs enjoyed a cold version of a similar drink, they mostly used the cacao beans as currency. In 1519, when the explorer and Conquistador, Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico, he captured the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, and defeated Montezuma. Fighting continued for several years until the Aztecs who were much diminished by the Spanish, finally succumbed to smallpox. But their chocolate lived on. Cortés returned to Spain with cacao and the formula to turn it into the rich beverage. He built cacao plantations in the new colonies of the conquered Mexican lands and produced beans for trade that brought prosperity to Spain. The Spaniards liked a sweeter drink with fewer spices. It was enjoyed in secret by the aristocracy for several decades before they shared it with the rest of Europe. The French and Italians changed the recipe again. It took the onset of the Industrial Revolution, with its development of steam-powered machines, to make the production of cocoa powder affordable. In 1850, Joseph Fry added cacao butter to cocoa power and formed a solid mass. Solid chocolate became wildly popular. The US is the world’s largest producer of chocolate and Hershey’s is our country’s largest producer of chocolate candy. The Hershey Chocolate Company was established in 1894. Six years later, they sold their first candy bar. On a visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania, you can enjoy the main street with its Hershey Kiss-shaped street lights, peruse the gift shop, and tour the factory, which is not at all like Willy Wonka's! By 2019, about two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply came from West Africa where child labor is the norm. Kids as young as ten-years-old are prohibited from going to school and forced to harvest cacao. Chocolate industry leaders worldwide pledged in 2001, under pressure from the U.S. Congress, to eradicate “the worst forms of child labor” from their West African cocoa suppliers. It was a goal companies agreed to reach in four years. Twenty-one years later, the practice continues. Nestle, Mars, and Hershey are working to encourage farmers to improve their working conditions and eliminate child labor, but the only way to make sure your chocolate is sourced ethically is to look for the fair trade certification label. Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is touted as a health food. It very well may be. For me, though, the best chocolate experience is laced with butter, plenty of sugar, and a few nuts, caramel, or a creamy center. Life really is like a box of chocolates. Enjoy your inevitable surprises. -—Be curious! (and lick up every luscious drop!) The idea for today’s post came quickly. As soon as I saw an article on World Chocolate Day, I had to find out more. Unfortunately, during (and after) a wonderful whirlwind week with my grandsons and their family, the research never got done. Please come back next week to find out what I found out about chocolate.
--Be curious! (and discover something delicious) In the great green room
There was a telephone And a red balloon . . . Goodnight stars Goodnight air Goodnight noises everywhere. from Goodnight Moon written by Margaret Wise Brown pictures by Clement Hurd Harper, 1947 Can you still imagine Clement Hurd’s pictures of the great green room? You probably remember the old lady sitting on her rocking chair next to a table holding a telephone and a bowl full of mush. And the picture of the cow jumping over the moon in its scalloped frame. And the little mouse that appears on each page. What makes this simple story so incredibly memorable? In my blog celebrating 20 years of Harry Potter (7/31/2018), I made a list to define a literary classic. As I said then, I based the list on my training and experience as a children’s librarian, and my pleasure in reading to young children, (my own and other people’s), not-so-young-children, and reading to myself. Yes, I read children’s books. Really, I mostly read children’s books. Here’s what I came up with then, and I think it still holds true.
Questions without answers abound. Who will eat that presumably cold bowl of mush. Why say goodnight to nobody? Where is the old lady at the end of the story? These questions and others keep the story interesting time after time, for the children and their grown-up readers. Only one character, the narrator, describes her surroundings. And unless you count the old lady or the kittens or the little mouse, which I don’t, we watch her perform her bedtime ritual alone, saying goodnight to everything important to her. Even both moons, the real one outside her window and the one drawn in the picture of the cow jumping over it, and even that bowl of mush. In 1947, it was a ground-breaking move to write of the mundane in a children’s book. We see life lessons in Goodnight Moon. Children need routine and curiosity, relationships both real and fantastical, a firm grounding in their real surroundings and the freedom to imagine. Goodnight Moon is tied up at the end with a surprise. We, as readers and listeners, expect the whole process of bedtime rituals to end with a parent’s kiss on sleepy eyelids. What we have is just as satisfying, but just a little unexpected. After saying goodnight to the outside world, we return inside to those familiar nighttime noises. My last criterion, can the book withstand the test of time? Well at 75 years and counting, I vote yes. People buy about 800,000 copies of Goodnight Moon every year. This includes gifts for new babies, personal purchases, and library copies. By 2017, the latest information I could find, an estimated 48 million copies have been sold. You can find copies published in French, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Catalan, Hebrew, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Korean, Hmong, German, and Armenian (both the Eastern and Western dialects). Even though the actual 75th anniversary of Goodnight Moon will not be until September 3, 2022, I decided to give the book and Margaret Wise Brown a little extra love and celebrate early. So much changes in our fraught world. Sea-levels are rising and extreme weather events continue to wreak havoc on our Earth’s resources, plant, and animal life including our own. Wild fires rage. Laws change to promote the minority’s will. And all any of us can try to control or even influence (people, things, and ideas) are those nearest and dearest to us. Just like Goodnight Moon’s narrator, we need to identify those things most precious to us, but unlike her, instead of saying goodnight, let’s fight back, with our words and our actions. Be curious! (and courageous) We were so far away from the sun that it didn’t look big anymore. It just looked like a very bright star. We were leaving the solar system!
from The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System written by Joanna Cole illustrated by Bruce Degen Scholastic, 1990 I was 16 years old in 1968, the year the Rock Musical Hair opened on Broadway and ignited the Age of Aquarius. Peace, it predicted, would guide the planets, and love would steer the stars. It would be a time of harmony and understanding. Sympathy and trust would abound. No more falsehoods or derision. Living dreams of golden visions and mystic crystal revelations would fill the earth. And the mind’s true liberation would be cause for celebration. Some lyrical interpretation makes a better narrative, but the gist is still here, even though we’re all still waiting for those predictions to come true. Seems like planetary alignment is more important to poets and astrologers than it is to astronomers and cosmic science in general. But dreaming is important, even crucial to being alive in this time fraught with fear of so much that is out of our control. And real danger, too. All month astrology and astronomy are traveling companions, of a sort. Five major planets are aligned in the early morning sky. They have been visible without a telescope for most of this past month (June) and Friday (6/24/22), if the clouds stay away, will be the best day to look for them. About 45 minutes before dawn look toward the eastern horizon. At south-south east you’ll find Mercury pretty low in the sky. A little higher and about due east you’ll find Venus. A crescent moon comes next. Then look a little higher still and a little farther south. You’ll see Mars. Past Mars, Jupiter appears due southeast (is that a thing?) and higher still. Finally continue turning till you’re due south. You should be able to see Saturn a little lower in the sky than Jupiter. Here's a link to an article from Sky and Telescope. Scroll down till you see the skymap. Sunrise occurs at 5:51 here in my part of Ohio, so I’ll need to be in my backyard by dawn, about 5:00. The birds start singing good morning, calling each other to my birdfeeder around 5:30, so it will dark and quiet. Trees clutter up my horizon. I'll need to take a short drive across the street to the country! Our sister planets all orbit the sun in similar orbits so being able to observe a conjunction (two or three planets close together) is fairly common. Seeing these five, though, especially in their order of distance from the sun, is pretty rare. According to astronomers, the planets won’t line up again like this until August, 2040. Robert Fitzgerald, a prominent British astrologer says astrological ages shift about every 2,160 years. He says in The Astronomical Journal (02/06/16), we are at the edge of the Age of Pisces and about to enter the Age of Aquarius. We’ll be moving into an era of “genius and science, revolution, brotherhood, utopian ideals, immortality, and world culture.” Okay, I’ll keep waiting, but I’m not as patient as I was when I was 16. Be curious! (and work toward the Age of Aquarius) …word spread
from the port to town through the countryside and into the fields that a Union general read from a balcony that we were all now and forever free and things would be all different now. from All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom written by Angela Johnson illustrated by E. B. Lewis Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014 I remember when we celebrated Abe Lincoln’s birthday and George Washington’s birthday on their real birthdays. I remember when Decoration Day became Memorial Day. We all knew when D-Day was, and Armistice Day, and Pearl Harbor Day, too. Names change to become more inclusive, dates change to become more convenient, and very occasionally, a new national holiday is added to our calendar to emphasize a particular aspect of American heritage or celebrate an event in American history. Congress has considered national holidays honoring both Susan B. Anthony and Caesar Chavez, each for their contributions to American society. Since 2011, Congress has discussed, on and off, a proposal to make Election Day a national holiday. None of these suggestions has become reality. In 1934, FDR established the second Monday in October as Columbus Day, a national holiday. “Congress believed that the nation would be honoring the courage and determination which enabled generations of immigrants from many nations to find freedom and opportunity in America.” (Congressional Research Service Report) In 2022, many people choose to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October instead. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday has been celebrated as a national holiday since Ronald Reagan signed legislation in November, 1983. All together, we celebrate eleven National Holidays. Here they are. Even though Juneteenth has been celebrated, mostly in Texas, since June 19, 1865, it took over 200 years for Americans to recognize its importance and for our president to establish the day as a national holiday. Many people still don’t know why June 19 was selected for our newest national holiday, the first since 1983. Here it is: Juneteenth commemorates the end of the Civil War, the official end of slavery, and celebrates the significance African American heritage has added to our culture. On January 1, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, through the Emancipation Proclamation, declared all enslaved people to be legally free. But that freedom could not take effect in places still under Confederate control. This included the western-most part of Texas. It took two-and-a-half more years before the announcement could be made telling the enslaved people there, that they are free. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger along with 2,000 soldiers, rode into Galveston and explained that the Emancipation Proclamation combined with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States assured their freedom throughout the land. The 250,000 formerly enslaved people of Texas were finally and legally free. The joint resolution of the amendment was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on February 1, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865. In the language of the amendment, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The phrase “except as a punishment…convicted” was the cause of much agony. Its misinterpretation led to lynchings and Jim Crow laws, and did nothing to assuage ingrained, generational prejudice. In the century and a half since the end of the Civil War, our citizens, Black, white, brown, young, old, men, women, and everyone landing anywhere on the spectrum of these several dichotomies, grapple with what it means to be American. Juneteenth can be appreciated by everyone. It’s a national holiday honoring our Union, the defeat of division, and a celebration of African American influences on American culture. Despite recent and current pushback, the US is becoming more diverse and more accepting. Our holidays and celebrations highlight and lift up our differences, and our similarities. Happy Juneteenth! Be curious! (and celebrate each other) Do not stand there, Reha, says Amma. Come in or stay out.
It’s the old superstition, . . . neither inside nor outside, . . . A metaphor, as Amma says, for not doing anything halfway. from Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, 2021 When I was in grade school, I spent birthday money or my weekly allowance coins at my local dime store to buy, among other stuff, lucky rabbits’ feet. I don’t remember how many I had. They had a way of getting lost or borrowed or given away and needed to be replaced. Some were dyed pink or blue. I preferred the plain white ones. Their claws were still attached. On the opposite end was a round metal clasp, like a cap. A chain made of tiny balls was threaded through a small hole at the top so it could be clipped to a keychain or necklace. Like most of my friends, I carried a rabbit’s foot on my keychain for good luck. When our teacher handed out tests, purple-inked ditto sheets, sometimes stapled together, sometimes just a single page, we’d all lay our rabbit’s feet on our desks. For good luck, in case the studying and generic prayers were not enough to ensure our success. Just in case. One year, maybe third or fourth grade, our teacher told us “No rabbit’s feet in my classroom.” She gently explained that the good-luck charm had cost a living animal its life. Why in the whole world had I not made that connection before? I was appalled. And now I had a dilemma. What would be the best way to rid myself of the sad and disgusting dead foot of a once living, furry bunny? The other sad part of this story is I don’t even remember. Maybe I gave it to a younger friend who did not have my same teacher. Maybe I gave it to my brother. I know I did not throw it away. That would have been sacrilegious. I’m not even sure I knew the word, but the idea of throwing away even part of a once-living being was as appalling as keeping it. During a conversation with my older daughter we started talking about superstitions. She suggested that superstitions are portents of something bad. Unless you did a particular thing or carried or said one thing or another, something bad would happen. Black cats, ladders, and broken mirrors came to mind. But like carrying that rabbit’s foot, I knew sometimes superstition could foster good luck. The New World Encyclopedia defines a superstition as “a way of attempting to regain control over events, particularly when one feels helpless.” Understanding why events occur is one of humanity’s deepest yearnings. When something good, or especially when something bad happens, a common response is Why me? The quest for answers has led to many superstitions. Often superstitions are born through coincidence. Who besides me has a lucky shirt or a penny? or pair of socks? or fork? or pencil? … Sometimes the item wards off the bad, and sometimes it attracts the good. I’ve been known to walk under an open ladder, just to see. (BTW, nothing happened.) I’ve also been known to toss a few grains of spilled salt over my shoulder, just because. Some superstitions are particular to one society or culture or group of people. Some are more universal. Breaking a mirror will bring bad luck is a superstition believed in many cultures. It may have begun in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome whose citizens attributed a person’s reflection with a connection to a their soul. Viewing your reflection in a pool was akin to seeing your soul. When artisans learned how to put a high sheen on metal, they believed their gods could see their souls in these reflective pieces. Later, when mirrors were made of glass, they became much more likely to break, often due to poor handling. It was considered so disrespectful that “people thought it compelled the gods to rain bad luck on anyone so careless.” ("The Conversation" from the University of South Carolina) But maybe superstitions are really related to our attitude. If we think something bad will happen, but we carry a four-leaf-clover, or find a face-up penny, we’re likely to be more aware of the moment. We can ward off the bad happenstance through our own sensitivities. Likewise with “good” luck. If we expect good things will happen, we’re more likely to work toward that end. I’m really more of a “gray” person than one who lives in the black and white of the world, but opposites are one of my fascinations. I keep a list of them. So I wondered, what is the opposite of superstition? Expecting something in the spiritual realm or something faith-based, I took a quick peek at the antonym for superstition on my computer’s built-in thesaurus. What I found was not really a surprise: science. Pure and simple, science is based in fact. But science is ever-changing and very complex. And we’re acquiring new scientific knowledge all the time. That doesn’t change the science, but it does change what we know to be true. At least until we learn the next new thing. -—be curious! (and believe) The stamps are so beautiful, bright and colorful, large and small. They are like seeds blown by powerful winds from all corners of the world, like wishes.
from The Stamp Collector written by Jennifer Lanthier illustrations by François Thisdale Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012 (accessed on YouTube May 29, 2022) Since my dad was a philatelist, I’ve always been aware of postage stamps. I’ve written about the United States Postal Service (USPS) in this space before (7/28/20 & 2/22/22) and it seems timely to delve back in. Who says our Congress can’t get anything done? Who says they complain, stonewall, won’t compromise, cause gridlock? Last month, on April 6, 2022, President Biden signed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, that was delivered to him earlier in the day. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D) from New York introduced the Bill on May 11, 2021. On February 8, 2022, the House of Representatives voted to pass, 342-19. One month later, March 8, 2022, after discussion, debate, and a timeout, the Senate voted 79-19 in favor. Even though the Postal Service receives no taxpayer funds, it is not allowed to set its own prices. Only Congress can do that. Because of that and an unfair funding burden put into the USPS’s budget in 2006, the Postal Service has been operating in the red to the tune of almost $5,000,000,000.00 (five billion dollars) in 2020 alone. The passage of this new law assures the viability of the USPS. It involves money, employee health insurance, and health benefit plans for retirees including enrolling in Medicare when they are eligible. It repeals the unfair requirement that the USPS annually prepay future retirement health benefits. This line alone is responsible for saving the organization $72 billion. In 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a fund to pay for the cost of its retiree’s health care benefits 75 years into the future. Seventy. Five. Years! No other federal agency or private corporation is burdened with this Congressionally-created liability. Postmaster Louis DeJoy has been complaining about the un-sustainability of the Post Office since before he was appointed by former president Trump. Within his first month, DeJoy issued orders that slowed mail service. Bills were late. Packages were late. Voting by mail became unnecessarily complicated, controversial, and political. The new legislation relieves a lot of the Postal Service’s debt giving it the financial flexibility to buy new trucks, make mail routes more efficient, and while it still cannot set its own prices, starting in January, 2022, scheduled increases will take place twice a year. The next increase, 2 cents, is scheduled for July, 2022. It will raise the rate to 60 cents for a first class letter. Other rates will also increase. Here's info from the USPS itself. It’s time to stock up on Forever Stamps. They are worth the current postal rate no matter how much they cost when you bought them. The Postal Service already cooperates with the US Passport office. Now, the USPS can contract with other more local government agencies to handle dog licenses, fishing licenses, and other non-postal products and services to bring in additional revenue. And the new law mandates mail delivery six days per week, allowing for recognized Federal Holidays. Oversight regulations are built in. Simply stated, it takes seven steps for a Bill to become a Law. 1. Senators or Representatives write, sponsor, and introduce a bill for consideration 2. A committee is assigned to study the bill. They might request reports, hold hearings, decide on revisions. The committee might decide to recommend to pass the legislation. 3. The bill is sent back to the full House or Senate for more debate and approval. Amendments can be added. 4. House and Senate members vote on their respective versions of the bill. 5. A bill must be passed by the House and the Senate. The two chambers resolve legislative differences through a conference committee. The final compromise is agreed on by the House and the Senate. 6. When the bill is passed by both Chambers, it is sent to the President to sign into Public Law. 7. The Office of Federal Register assigns the Public Law a number so it can be codified by subject order. That way all laws on the same topic are together and easy to find. Simple, right? Then why is it so hard for our Senators and Representatives to write, sponsor, and present for consideration sensible gun laws? Could it have to do with complaints, stonewalling, refusing to compromise? Gridlock? Fifty-eight cents is a small price to pay to let your Senators and Representatives know how important it is to protect our children and other innocent victims of gun violence. If you wait till July, the cost goes up a couple of cents. Still *so* worth the effort, but lots can happen between now and July 1. Find your Congressional Representatives here. Find your US Senators here. -—stay curious! (and write a letter) That’s it! William pulled out his pad and drew pictures. He scribbled words next to the pictures. He wrote. He wrote. He WROTE! He ran to find the umpire.
The umpire read William’s notes. “Yes, that could work,” he said. from The William Hoy Story written by Nancy Churnin pictures by Jez Tuya Albert Whitman & Company, 2016 With baseball season in full swing, so to speak, I discovered someone who made such a big impact on the game that he changed it forever. William Hoy was born May 23, 1862, in my home state of Ohio. Lots happened three years later. The Confederate States surrendered to the Union Army and ended the Civil War. P.T. Barnum was elected to the Connecticut legislature. And three-year-old William Hoy contracted meningitis. As a result, he lost his hearing and speech. When he was old enough, William’s parents sent him to the Ohio State School for the Deaf in Columbus, Ohio, where he learned American Sign Language (ASL) and a love of baseball. He received a traditional education and was valedictorian when he graduated in 1879. Even though some people including his own father were skeptical, William did not let his deafness keep him from achieving his baseball goals. He signed his first contract with a minor league team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when he was only 24 years old. Sometimes pitchers took advantage of William. In one game, because he was too far away to read the umpire’s lips, he didn’t know that his first three pitches were strikes. He thought they were balls. He waited and waited for the next pitch but it never came. Instead, the pitcher burst out laughing and pointed to the stands behind William. They were filled with laughing fans. William was good at making connections. He transferred his knowledge of ASL and adapted it to the baseball diamond. He convinced the third-base coach to raise his right arm if the umpire called a strike, and his left arm if the call was a ball. His suggestion to that third-base coach caught on and changed baseball forever. I think William Hoy would be surprised at how important signaling has become to the game he loved so much. Non-verbal signals became more and more popular. They helped fans, too, especially those seated high in the stands who couldn’t hear the calls either. Of course, the purpose of signaling is communication. Umpire signals need to be standard across all the teams in the League. But a catcher’s signal to the pitcher needs to be strategic. And discreet. The catcher tells the pitcher what kind of ball to throw and where it should land. Playing on a particular player’s strengths and weaknesses, the ball/strike count, who’s up next, what inning is being played, how many outs, even weather conditions go into a catcher’s decision. That’s a lot of information to communicate and a lot of information to keep secret from the other team. It’s especially tricky when a player is on second base, directly across from the catcher. No one wants the opposing team to be able to “read” those signals. This year baseball’s adding a new technology. It’s called PitchCom and it turns a catcher’s signals from a learned and predetermined sequence of finger-flips, points, and wiggles, to his touch of a button on the wrist of his glove-hand. An electronic signal is transmitted through an antenna and changed to a voice signal. A small devise worn inside the pitcher’s ball cap receives the voice signal and sends it to the pitcher’s ear. Verbal but inaudible to most everyone but the pitcher, this could bring signal-stealing to an end. ProMystic is the company that developed PitchCom. John Hankins, the company co-founder, was fascinated by the Huston Astros’ scandal where an electronic devise videotaped catchers’ signals and decoded them by playing them back in real time. Hankins and his team adapted the technology he had developed for magicians and mentalists to baseball. PitchCom is available in Spanish, Korean and Japanese. A less expensive version is being developed for school teams and Little League. After being tested in the Minor Leagues last year, Major League Baseball announced that PitchCom will be allowed for the 2022 season. It is optional, based on the pitcher’s comfort level with the technology and the catcher’s comfort with the learning curve involved in changing flying fingers to tapping buttons. I like to watch baseball on TV and listen to all the talk about how the game is played and how well the players and teams are doing. I can see close-up all the wind-ups, the fly-pops, and where the second-baseman spits. And I can share my popcorn with Frances, my cat. This year I’ll keep an eye out for the catchers’ signals. And whether or not there are any. I started watching baseball in high school My priorities have changed since then, but the crack of a bat and flying signal-fingers still pull at my nostalgic heartstrings. The 2022 season officially started on April 7 and will finish up October 5. Then post-season games will determine who will play in the World Series. Then the series, itself. I’ll probably be shopping for turkey and trimmings by then, but batter up, anyway! -—stay curious! (and communicate your intentions) |
I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .Archives
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