What Would Thoreau Say?

Ah, what's that I smell?  Is it grass, newly mown, lines painted in all the right places, dirt raked perfectly?  Yes, it is baseball season once again, and unlike last year, there is a chance the teams from little league to big league, will get to play a full season. And there might even be fans at the games.  (Heck in Texas, which has opened up completely so that absolute strangers can sit cheek to jowl, spit on each other, and spread the virus which isn't dead yet, guaranteeing its continued existence, you can go to a game with 40,000 other super-spreaders.) But back to baseball. In past years I have waxed poetic (another expression that makes no sense to me) about my love for baseball. I have told stories of being five years old and announcing at the dinner table my intent to be a professional player, a goal that never changed until I did just that. I have written about great baseball people like Yogi and Hank. And I have even written about the baseball gods (yes, they...

  It’s an exaggeration to say the afternoon I spent with Hank Aaron was the greatest day of my life, but those who know how crazy baseball people are, wouldn’t be shocked if they heard me say it was. To spend time with Hammerin’ Hank, alone, just him and me, ranks up there as a great day and certainly one of the greatest days in my baseball life. I was the head of marketing and fund raising for a national nonprofit based in Atlanta. We recruited Hank to our Board of Governors and since I always had the job of first visiting the recruit to talk about the board, I was beside myself when I heard one of the greatest baseball players of all time was to get one of my briefing visits. I had done a lot of these meetings, some with high-profile people. But having one of these meetings with Hank Aaron? This was a whole new ballgame (sorry) for a baseball nut like me. This was Henry Freakin’ Aaron!   I couldn’t sleep the night before and the day of the meeting I couldn’t eat or har...