Baseball and Other Thoughts on a Fri Eve

I'd much rather be at Sparkie's, hoisting a few 22-oz LaBatts, with the gang than here, but.... I have the ball game on and I have some views. A replay of the guy singing the national anthem was played. The singer, I have no idea who it was, sang the Star-Spangled Banner and, several times, seemed to say "Oh-merica...." Hmmm, I thought it was "America." Down 5-1 and a Royal gets picked off of first base in the 7th inning. Major League Baseball????? What is this guy doing? Is he a .400 hitter? If not, why is he up there? No doubt, somebody will say "He's young and needs to learn the game." Yep, but, might I ask, what has be been doing for the pat 20 years--in Little League, high school, college, the minors? Just asking. It's nice to be aggressive, but c'mon. The Tigers brought in a reliever, who retired the first two batters, then had three extremely cheap hits--nothing close to a line-drive in the bunch. So, the manager takes him out. Why? It's not as if the other team is lighting him up. Maybe it's to give the other team a different look? Maybe it's to make it look like the manager is doing something? Why take out a pitcher that the other team can't hit? As with everything else, what do I know? Not baseball, but I have really been down the past 4-5 days. I can't put my finger on it, but I think it's the worst 4-5 days I've had since being retired. Maybe it stems from Mon eve. I was on the computer and went through my e-mail address book. I deleted about half a dozen addresses of people, hey--FRIENDS!--who have died fairly recently. Maybe that, subconsciously or otherwise, affected me. Grocery shopping today. I saved $90.36 with bottles/cans/coups. I spent only $19.36. And that includes $3.70 in returnable bottle deposits. Next week's ads don't look as inviting. Unless I have a lot of coups to use, I will likely not shop.