Random Tue Thoughts

The deer are proliferating.  The fawns are all over the place.  The other day, out running, I saw eleven or twelve deer--I ran out of fingers so I'm not sure how many.  All but two were fawns.  Several were by themselves, without their parents.  "Oh, see the little fawn.  Does it have any doe?  Yeah, two bucks!"

What a rainstorm!  It must have hit east and south of us, although we had rain most of the day--yesterday.  I guess many roads were flooded out, including parts of most of the freeways.  One of the interchanges (I 75 and I 696) I use to go run with my blind buddy was apparently under "15 or 20 feet" of water this AM, according to a radio report.  One of the reporters called it, "Lake I 696/75."  I hope it's not damaged or, if it is, repairs are done by Sat.  Driving the long way--actually it's shorter in miles, but longer in time--is an extra 10 or 15 minutes depending on traffic.  Couple that with the hailstorm from a couple of weeks ago.  Friends had more than $30,000 worth of damage done to their house and cars--preliminary estimates from their insurance adjuster.  It could go higher.  And lots of folks were in the same boat.  We were spared the hail (She had pictures of baseball-sized hail in her hands!), but had hard rain and some strong winds.  But we escaped most of the bad stuff.

I know baseball, at least at the Major League level, isn't about fundamentals.  It's about physical ability--bigger, faster, stronger.  I wonder, in the end, how many more games a team could win if it stressed fundamentals and practiced them.  For instance, I saw a play the other day where an outfielder went after a ball off the wall correctly--meat-hand in first.  Not a great play by any means, certainly not one to make Sports Center, it was the proper one, good fundamental outfield play.  It saved him a couple of steps, some time.  He threw to a base where the runner was not expecting a close play and, although called safe initially, was called out upon review.  It was a key play in the game.  Now, if that stuff happened all season long......

Speaking of Sports Center (or whatever show Bopper was watching), highlights of "great" outfield plays from the previous were shown.  Some of them were very, very good plays, worthy of "highlights."  But some of the others were good, not great plays.  Aren't Major Leaguers supposed to make good plays routinely? I have notice one play few Big Leaguers make.  On foul pops, near the stands, rarely do they go to the wall, find it with their hand, and then locate the ball.  That way they don't have to worry about crashing into the wall and can concentrate on the ball.  All it takes is a little practice......

I'm still geeked about The Great Pizza Challenge from last week.  Bopper ran it with me, his first race, his first 5K.  He found it "harder than I thought," but finished much better than I thought.  He showed some real guts!  Now, if we can keep the momentum going......  I'm planning on devoting my Sept column at www.runmichigan.com to my Great Pizza Challenge run with Bopp.

The results of last week's primary elections were disheartening, as I've noted.  When I feel like maybe there's no hope, I read.  Usually, to get my spirits back up, I read biogs.  Often it's yet another book about Lincoln, but not always.  This time I opened a Washington sketch.  He, too, is inspiring, in a different way, but still inspiring.  And, in any good book about Washington, the fact that he owned slaves, more than 200 of them, is raised and confronted.  It's good to confront such questions.