Dan Uggla

Dr. Kevorkian is dead, and while Kurt Vonnegut may want God to bless him, I don't know how I feel. Sometimes, I think that there are too many babies being born into this world, and then I think that my wife was #10 out of 11 kids, and I'm pretty dang happy that her parents kept procreating. But then I go back to Jack, and he's dead, and nothing is going to bring him back. Nothing is going to stop the terminal illnesses of many of his patients, those that wanted or got his help during those times. Nothing is going to help the ones who suffered painfully from the same thing that Lou Gehrig suffered from. And I can't say that I would want to go that way, and I wouldn't want anyone I loved to suffer that way either, but I don't know if I'd want some creepy old dude with a suicide machine setting me up for my final end.

Just press this button and it will release poison into your veins through the IV that I've set up.

And maybe we've gone on in life as a people long past the point where we're truly ripe. Joseph Heller said something about that, too, when he wrote Catch 22 and spilled the secret of Snowden all over the plane. Life is everything. Being able to live and do the things that we want to do before we get too old and too feeble to go to the good places. I think of my dad not wanting to be alive if he can't hunt and fish. I think to myself of all the joy I get through the physical exercise of hiking while experiencing the beauty of the woods and the world around me as my legs carry me to waterfalls, slot canyons, and mountain views. I wouldn't want to live if I was chained to a chair in the living room of my house, rocking into a slumber that seemed to take ages to get to. Somehow, I believe there has to be a point where we fulfill our need, and that's that. We make peace with the universe, and like Allen Ginsburg, we go "toodle loo."
My neighbor's husband died of a prolonged death just recently. We've lived in this house since November of 2009, and we saw him a few times. He never made it to the porch. A couple of times, I went in the house to help move him. He just died slowly, and it was sad watching how much it took out of my neighbor as she witnessed the end of her husband of 50+ years. She never knew it was the end - even when the hospice team came in. He just slipped further and further out of consciousness as his body filled up with toxins, and eventually, that was it. He was gone. Now, she's lost and angry as he isn't there to give her support to do the daily tasks - even though she's done them for ages now. She's trying to fill up her time, and we talk to her for companionship and because she's a good person, but the bitterness of having a person that was so loved gone is hurting her as she spends more time remembering the bad things that were done to him. She still remembers the struggles that they went through and perhaps there is a sense of "looks like we made it," but there's also a sense of we had a hard life.
And some do, but...
The days just get harder and longer, and thoughts of writing out his life's memories are lost to her (the kids aren't interested in this - even if that's now, and you never know what they'll feel years later - I say this as I have stored the memories of ancient times of my own family - 80-90 years ago and those from 70 years or so ago).
And sometimes, it's all about the giving up that seems to be the answer to living. I remember being around my neighbor at times when you could see how much it hurt her to watch the man she loved suffered, and she eluded to feeling like she wanted his suffering to stop - ashamed in part - but still understanding that the man she loved wasn't there any more. But still she held onto his belongings because they were his. She fixed his car up - even though it was old and gone and she really wasn't using it. She still wanted to believe, and she didn't want him to see his life given away before it was gone.
And there is nobility and love and honor in what she did. Now, she just has to move on to accept death and grief. It won't be easy, but it will lead to something good - hopefully.
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For the baseball metaphor of all of the things that have gone and are no longer as they were before, we can only look to Dan Uggla. He's hitting .172 with 7 home runs propping up his 37 hits. Sure, 15 of his hits are for extra bases, but he's batting .172! He was killing me for keeping him in the lineup. I bounced between 2nd and 4th place (out of 6 teams), and as soon as I dropped him - acknowledged the end - I went into first place.
It wasn't easy to say goodbye to Uggla. I've liked him. A lot of the players who come up with Florida are really likable and good players, but sometimes, we have to say goodbye. Like Mike Lowell before him... sometimes, the end comes.
The Baseball Project sang of Willie Mays.
There was the sad end of Ken Griffey Jr.
I wasn't the same after the 2001 season of Mark McGwire until the Angels went to championship glory.
Death isn't easy. The cycles of life aren't easy.
I'm not saying that saying goodbye to a loved one is as easy as moving out a fantasy player or bidding goodbye to a favorite player, but in life, all of the things we love, whether human, animal, or larger than life heroes we never see in our daily lives, are important to us. They make us who we are.
They're not easy to put aside, but there comes a time to understand that we have to help them and us when the time comes and to confront things as realistically as possible - whether we want to believe the end is here or not. I wish my neighbor would have seen the signs a little clearer. That would have made this time now a little easier for her.

Carl Everett

We live in a culture that all too often lacks respect for life. For example, no sooner did my 86-year old neighbor pass away than one of those "we buy houses" people called his 82-year old widow and asked if she wanted to sell the house. She's a nice person, but she told him what was what, which is a good thing. That said, we're hoping for lightning and karma. They're more thorough.
In the end, they had clearly no respect or understanding what the meaning of life and living is (it comes down to 4 simple things: 1) Love and only love 2) Doing your best at something 3) Impressing the people who matter and 4) Experiencing the happy things in life.
This does not include: 1) Treating people like crap 2) Manipulating other people for personal gain 3) Getting so messed up that normal functioning is impossible 4) Committing crimes against people, businesses, or humanity 5) Forcing stupid views of life on humanity (even if it's allowed by a Constitutional amendment).
Thus, it's clear to see that there are some people out there in the baseball world that can use some serious help.
With that, Carl Everett and his dinosaur are back. When last we heard from Jurassic Carl, he was talking about the relative merits of Creationism, which for its purpose, does have some interesting science behind it, but alas, Carl was all about stating how "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Somebody actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."
It's one thing to quote science... another thing to just quote the Bible. For that, we can quote the
word of Giorgio - the potential to be just as absurd - slightly more entertaining.
Nevertheless, when your only good deed ever is breaking up a Mike Mussina gem with 2 out and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th, there isn't much else to say for you. In his nearly 14 years of MLB time, he hit 202 home runs for 9 teams and batted .271. This netted him almost $45million from 1993-2006. A pretty good haul for a guy who had a lot of talent but was regarded negatively on and off the field - religious conviction not included.
Last night, he didn't do much to change the world's opinion of him as he ended up in jail for assault and witness tampering, but it's all in a day's work when you're angry at the world.
Nevertheless, he isn't alone.
Also included in the list of people who need to understand the meaning of community is our good friend Elijah Dukes, who is also what can only be referred to as "an angry black man" (like Everett), was picked up for driving with a revoked license. Add this to threats and surliness, and we have a true idiot.
Yep... that's not changing his outlook in the world of post baseball.
And as for baseball as a whole, African Americans make up just 8.5% of baseball, which is its lowest total in years. Granted, we're not as flashy as the NBA or hard hitting as the NFL, but we're THEE major sport. It's not that problems don't cut across ethnicities, but to think of attitude problems presented from the inner city experience (Albert Belle, Lasting Milledge, and Gary Sheffield come to mind), there definitely seems to be more in the public eye (and perhaps this is a racist media, but if you're in the limelight, don't you think you would do what Jackie Robinson did (WWJRD)? And while this leads me to question if there is an unwritten rule where certain players are written off if their street sense makes them too little of a team player, I really have to wonder if this is just self-fulfilled prophecy of doom? After all, we're in an era of integration and acceptance. This isn't black cats on the field and spikes aimed high with slurs from the stands as things to be accepted.
But to wonder what is and what should be and how we got the way that we did, we only have to go back to the #4 game of the past 50 years on MLBTV and I think of Andy Van Slyke telling Barry Bonds what to do and getting the "international peace sign" for it. Have we divided back to the early 1950s again where only a few select African Americans get to play, and if so, who chooses the names? Have we created this situation with our socioeconomic divisioins or is there something else? If the MLB won't take this, why will the NBA and the NFL?
Granted, there have been tons of angry white guys in baseball... none more so than the violent racist scum Ty Cobb, and for this, he too was hated, but players wanted his bat in the game for their team. What does it say when players have talent and aren't wanted?
It's not that we're excluding all blacks or even all inner city blacks. Torii Hunter is a role model to the game (as is CC, Heyward, and Howard), but what about these guys past and present?
It's a sad world.
Here's to the good things that comes with all people playing the game right and living life to the max.