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(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com.)

When most people think of movie scenes that pull the patriotic heartstrings, they think of Independence Day, Saving Private Ryan, maybe some of the old John Wayne films, Team America: World Police, or even Rocky 4. For me, however, the movie scene that most screams “America!” is the 4th of July segment of The Sandlot.

Although the whole scene is great, from the block parties to the food to the kids playing baseball under the fireworks to Benny “The Jet” yelling at his friends to concentrate on baseball instead of staring into the sky, what really makes that scene special to me is Ray Charles’s “America the Beautiful“. That is the icing on the cake, or rather the apple pie. I’m oozing America and ready to put another American flag on the moon by the time that scene is over.

I was reminded of this classic 4th of July scene this past Friday night at Space Coast Stadium, home of the Brevard County Manatees of the Florida State League.

Located not too far from Kennedy Space Center and Patrick Air Force Base on the east coast of Central Florida, the Brevard County area is home to many military veterans and people who work in the military and aerospace industries. On Friday the Manatees organization decided to honor this part of their community with a special Military Appreciation Night. Not only were tickets free for veterans throughout the area, but the Manatees also wore special desert camouflage uniform tops featuring a patch of one of the local Air Force units. During the game the organization also went out of their way to recognize those who served by asking veterans to stand for applause, having a little girl sing Mariah Carey’s “Hero”, and holding a silent auction for the game-worn jerseys with the money going to a veteran’s charity organization.

Although the patriotism was definitely flowing during the game (won 3-2 by the visiting Fort Myers Miracle), after the game the Manatees organization upped the emotion with an epic fireworks extravaganza. Accompanying the pyrotechnics was some of the best pro-American music songs ever written. Of course the public address system played Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”, but their first song was none other than Ray Charles’s “America the Beautiful”.

There I was, near field level on the first base side, with Manny the Manatee a few feet from me, a full moon peeking over the left center score board, fireworks lighting the sky, and Ray Charles singing America’s glory. Just like in The Sandlot.

Happy Memorial Day, indeed.

(P.S. Although I did not have my camera on me, here is a video of a fireworks show at Space Coast Stadium earlier this year.)

In my last post from the ancient dusty folders of my old schoolwork, I mentioned that I had one earlier piece of sports writing to post here. Well, after digging through binders, folders, and other assorted stacks, I finally found what I was looking for: a piece from an English class from my junior year of high school, way back in 1993-1994. Although written on paper – I think it might have been an in-class assignment – I am going to copy it here word for word and possibly error for error.

Topic: For the first time in my life, I knew what fear really meant.

Outline: A baseball story about a rookie who, in his first ever professional at bat, is hitting against the fastest throwing pitcher in the league.

There I was, straight out of high school and into the big leagues. If that wasn’t enough to be terrified about, Joe Wood was pitching. “Smokey” was his nickname because he threw so fast.

So I walked to the plate, trembling in fear. I was terrified. First pitch, POP! “Strike One” yelled the ump. I was so scared, I had goose bumps. Second pitch, BOOM! The ball hit the glove hard. Petrified, I took a breath to calm down. No help. Third pitch, I took a mighty swing and “STRIKE THREE!”. I was out.

Back in the day when I was young (I’m not a kid anymore, but some days I like to wish I was a kid again) and just getting into hip-hop, I was a big MC Hammer fan. I still remember seeing the “U Can’t Touch This” video on my birthday one year and it totally making my day. Not only was Hammer my favorite rapper for the first month liked hip-hop, but his lyrics were the first I ever memorized. I had his songs down before any of my other suburbanite friends.

So in honor of Hammer, today’s post title is a paraphrase of the “U Can’t Touch This” lyric: “I’ve been around the world/ from London to the Bay/ It’s Hammer, Go Hammer, MC Hammer, Yo Hammer/ oh, the rest can go and play/ U can’t touch this”.

And the following are links you can’t touch. Unless of course you have an iPad, then touching them is highly recommended.

- Did you know May 17th to 23rd was National Hemp Week? If I knew that I would have bought a hemp necklace from a local hippie. Maybe even watched a little Cheech and Chong.

- Speaking of altered states of being, here is an essay on the powers of African mysticism and their possible effect on African World Cup teams. However long, it is definitely worth the read. Here is a sample:

Nearly all the supporters in the streets of Ouagadougou have absolute faith in the effects of black magic on football in Africa. Abdoul Kader, who sells loincloths, sees black magic not as the devil’s art, but as a form of medicine. He confirms that everyone in Africa uses it. “It’s like that even when there’s a friendly match between market stall holders. You weaken the opponent so that you can win.”
But the authorities deny there is any question of that.

- Also on the subject of soccer, the Congolese Soccer Team was expelled from Rwanda after a near riot broke out after a controversial call. One player may or may not have “disappeared” before being able to leave the country.

- Keeping it international, check out this post on a new Mongolian rock band called Jonon. At least I think this is the Mongolian version of rock.

Here is a YouTube clip:

- Bringing it way back to the US, the guys over at The Starting Five interviewed Ernie Johnson of TNT Sports. Johnson has been one of the best to do it for a long time and he shares some his experiences and knowledge in this great interview.

- Going even more local, check out this hilarious exchange between a Tampa-area librarian and local blogger/writer Clark Brooks. Clark doesn’t take to kindly to being told he has a stolen library card.

(Note about the Tampa-area libraries: they aren’t really user friendly. At least the satellite one by my apartment isn’t. Maybe in the main library they have more knowledgeable attendants, but the little old lady behind the counter in the one I visited looked lost behind a computer. She might know books, but information management and library science seemed way out of her league.)

- Finally, last but definitely not least, on Thursday, June 3rd, the University of Chicago will be screening Space Jam, starring Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan. Although automatically of interest to the Chicago faithful due to the acting debut of Jordan, the screening has gained national interest on Deadspin.com due to the fact that it will also feature commentary by a professor who believes Space Jam has similarities to ancient Mayan texts.

If you think that’s weird, stay tuned for my upcoming 1,000 word treatise on Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. It will knock your socks off.

I think this is quite badass and far out of the realm of anything I can do, or have at least ever tried to do.

I’d see this movie.

(via Movie Crematorium.com)

Here is something that popped into my head the other day.

Starting with the premise that when you work for “The Man” you are nothing but a number, if all numbers can be added or subtracted through mathematics, if the process of mathematics is the process of truth, and if the truth will always set you free, does that mean working for “The Man” equals Freedom?

If we know this truth to be false, can we trust any truth to be true? What about those truths we know to be true? Were they put there by “The Man”, like peaches in a can? What about mathematics itself? Sure, math homework has and will always be an implement of “The Man” to break the will of children. But as you get older, you realize mathematics has some practical uses. Like the ability to Divide and Conquer. Or compute interest and see much money I had before the evil days of the volatile market.

Mathematics can also show us more about “The Man”. Of course, “The Man” has six letters, but that’s not important. Where it becomes weird is when you add up all the letters of The Man.

20+8+5+13+1+14=61

6+1=7

Seven is a very powerful number.

• Seven days of the week
• Seven minute abs
• Seven colors of the rainbow
• Seven Roman Emperors
• Seven deadly sins
• Seven days of creation
• and the seventh glyph of the Mayan calendar ends December 21, 2012

End the world right before Christmas?

Yup, that’s something The Man would do.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

Before last night’s action, the standings in the Florida State League were looking more than a little imbalanced. As of May 25th, there were three teams on winning streaks:

* Dunedin Blue Jays: 7 wins in a row
* Daytona Cubs: 4 wins in a row
* Lakeland Flying Tigers: 3 wins in a row

Of course, for every team that wins, someone else has to lose. And with so many teams with lengthy winning streaks, the Florida State League standings were also full of prolonged losing streaks. As of May 25th, another three teams were filling up the loss column on a nightly basis:

* Brevard County Manatees: 6 losses in a row
* Clearwater Threshers: 6 losses in a row
* Jupiter Hammerheads: 15 losses in a row

(At Jupiter’s current rate, they will be among the worst teams in Florida State League history. More to come on that soon. By the way, they are only hitting .220 as a team.)

Of course, teams are only as good as the day they play. And May 26th brought the end of suffering for two teams and the end of positive momentum for another.

Winless since May 11th, the Jupiter Hammerheads finally got off the schnide with an 8-2 win over the St. Lucie Mets.

In the battle of streaks, Clearwater brought an end to their misery and Dunedin’s winning ways with a 13-8 victory over the neighboring Blue Jays.

For others however, May 26th was just another day with the same old result.

Lakeland extended their streak to four with a win over the Tampa Yankees, who have now lost 3 in a row.

Daytona also continued their winning ways and prolonged the suffering of the hapless Manatees with a 9-3 victory.

(By the way, did you know “hap” means “one’s luck”? We use hapless often enough, but when was the last time you heard anyone say hap? Even my old Webster’s dictionary calls it archaic. Merriam-Webster.com states that hap is derived from the old Norse word “happ”, meaning “good luck”. So now you know.)

P.S. I know this post will get hits from people who google “Florida Streaking”. I swear it’s a coincidence.

Here is another essay I found deep in the files. Written in September 1997, right after I turned 20, it is possibly the first essay I ever wrote about sports. I’m sure there are errors or things I would change in the 12 years since, but I think in its raw form it shows my progression as a writer. Keep in mind also that this was written a few years before blogs, when the only sports media in town was ESPN and Fox Sports Net.

It seems athletes of today are bigger, stronger, and one might even say better, than those who played professional sports years ago.  If this is true, then why do today’s fans not share a love for their favorite sports team as deep as fans of the past?  Perhaps the answer is that those involved in the business of professional sports have caused today’s fans to become angered and disgruntled.

One of the reasons of this anger is the high cost of attendance to sporting events.  Many fans cannot afford to spend a lot of money for tickets.  If the fans do purchase tickets, they know they will be paying outrageous concession prices.  For example, a soda could cost the fan between $1.50 and $3.00, a hot dog $1.75, and a team yearbook $5.00.  If the fan decides to bring his or her family, the cost could easily surpass $100.  As a result, fewer fans attend professional sports contests.

Even the athletes who play the sports have a profound effect on sports fans.  Professional athletes have always earned more money than ordinary citizens.  In the 1920-1930s professional baseball players made about ten times more money than the common citizen.  In the 1990s that number has increased to about fifty to a hundred times more.  This has caused resentment, even jealousy, towards the athletes.  Fans believe players should perform up to the value in which they are being paid.  When players do not perform up to expectations, they are mercilessly booed and jeered.

Many professional athletes’ attitudes have caused a wave of negativity from fans.  Many athletes are seen as distant and arrogant.  This idea stems from the fact that more and more athletes are turning down the title of  “role model”.  There have also been incidents in which professional athletes have belittled sports fans.  The arrogant attitudes and irresponsibility by professional sports athletes has definitely marred fans’ attitudes towards sports in general.

The owners of professional sports teams have also done their share to anger the common fan.  Many owners of today differ from the owners of the past because today’s owners seem to be concerned only with profit.  Owners of yesteryear concerned themselves with the welfare of the team.  It seems the owners of the past cared more about a winning team than turning a profit.  Today’s owners will do almost anything to earn more of a profit, including relocating a team to another city.  For example, in the National Football League, recent movements have included the Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis, Missouri, and the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, Maryland.  These actions by the owners have caused many fans to disband their loyalty to sports franchises.

The media also has had a large effect on the disgruntled fan.  Today’s media is more intrusive into athletes’ lives than the media of the past.  The sports fan can easily find out which athlete has abuse problems, family problems, legal conflicts, etc.  This was not the case in the past.  In the old days, the media ignored athletes’ personal lives and instead opted to write about statistics and/or records.  This change in the media has swayed many fans’ views about professional sports athletes.

The result of the aforementioned factors is that less sports fans are truly fanatical about their favorite sports team.  The fan lives with the fear that his or her favorite team’s owner may move the team to another city, trade off the team’s best player, or even increase ticket prices to a level in which the fan can no longer afford to attend.  These fans can only hope for a better tomorrow in the world of sports,  a tomorrow that is more like the past.

One of things I’ve noticed lately is how difficult it is to stay in touch. Well, not really staying in touch, but staying on top of which tools to use to stay in touch. As communication methods increase, different people migrate to different avenues and in order to talk to them, I usually have to use whatever tool they prefer.

With each new tool, website, or social network staying in touch gets more complicated.

For example, I have family members I can only reach via phone, friends I only talk to via email, Twitter friends, Facebook friends, organizations I follow only on MySpace, a boss who only reads my office reports if they are printed out, and folks I text on a regular basis.

As to be expected, the use of communication tools often varies on generation. Younger friends, family members, peers, other people in my age bracket or younger tend to be more online. I don’t expect my grandfolks to be on Twitter any time soon.

Then there is the frequency of how often people check their communication platform. Although almost everyone has email, that’s doesn’t mean they check it. Same with voice mail.

Of course I make things exponentially more difficult by having multiple accounts on many of these platforms. I have four personal email addresses (I’ve only dropped two since I started emailing in 1996), four work email address on various servers and networks, two Twitter accounts, two MySpace accounts, and one Facebook account. And my phone, which has a Facebook and a Twitter app.

All I am missing is the firepit to send smoke signals.

Communication tools have also vastly changed the dating game. I remember back when an hour long conversation meant girl and I may have a few things in common. In the last two years, I haven’t dated a woman who didn’t rely heavily on text messaging.  I think the days of the hour-long phone call are long gone. I was getting good at that.

Calling now seems awkward. Like I have to really know someone first or they have to be expecting my call. Or maybe I have to text to let them know I am going to call.

Apparently, I am supposed to text a woman a lot sooner than I was supposed to call. There used to be a 24-hour rule on calling. Not that I was that great at following that, but do I text first now? What is the “correct” time I should wait before texting?

The last thing I want is to be this guy:

One of these days, I going to go Thoreau and be reachable only through mailed postage. Either that, or I am going to end up like the bad guy in Wes Craven’s Shocker and live in the grid.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

Way back in the year of yester, when men were men, Jason Heyward rode buses, and Steven Strasburg was still taking courses in public administration, I was peddling my literary wares, struggling, striving, hustling, hawking, and huckstering over at Thunder Matt’s Saloon. For those unfamiliar with the Saloon of Thunder Matt, it was an “esoteric” Chicago-based blog named in honor of one-time Cubs prospect and backup outfielder “Thunder” Matt Murton. As you could expect, being a Florida writer on a Cubs blog was not the easiest fit, and I had to find unique ways to fit in.

One of the more original ideas I came up with during my time at Thunder Matt’s Saloon was to find another Thunder Matt, one that wasn’t 1000 miles away. One fit to carry on the title and who could equally reek havoc and destruction on the diamond as the site’s namesake would have done if given the opportunity. Fortunately for me, a second chosen one was toiling in my backyard.

Headed into spring training, Matt Joyce was supposed to be the Tampa Bay Rays’ starting right fielder. Unfortunately, the injury bug intervened and a right elbow injury sidelined Joyce for the first month of the season. Now, after a month of undoubtedly rigorous and strenuous rehabilitation, “Southern Thunder” Matt Joyce is finally playing baseball again.

Southern Thunder Matt’s first stop on his way back to the bigs has been with the Port Charlotte Stone Crabs, the Rays Florida State League affiliate. In his first week with the Stone Crabs, Joyce has three hits in 11 at bats, crushed one home run, driven in four, has an amazing .994 OPS, saved three kittens from burning buildings, helped two old ladies cross the street, and brought forth a sense of fear and dread in the hearts of bus leagues pitchers everywhere.

The Great Southern Thunder has returned.

Because I appreciate each and every one of my readers (all 20 of you), I have culled the Internet, searched high and low, dug deep, and emerged with a bunch of killer links for your reading enjoyment. All have been read and approved by me, so you know it’s quality.

• May 21st is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man and so, in honor of the little yellow guy, here is Mashable.com’s 10 Awesome Video Games You Can Play Online. Not only is there Pac-Man, but also Donkey Kong. Mario Bros, Centipede, and a bunch of other classics.
• AC/DC recently jammed in Bulgaria, and via Global Voices Online, here is a site with 23 YouTube clips of the show.
• Speaking of YouTube and it’s social media kin, the almighty Facebook, before the two sites were banned by Pakistan, several Pakistani bloggers expressed their frustration at the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” Facebook fan page. Although none write about the potential for revenge, you can tell they are hurt. The way I see it, just because I can say what I want doesn’t mean I should be deliberately disrespectful. Fear of violence should not be the only thing that limits creative endeavors.
• In other conflicting cultural news from the Islamic world, a Nigerian senator is marrying a 13-year-old girl. This is the same man who married a 15-year-old a few years ago. Unfortunately, he is claiming Islam lets him do this. Sounds like he just like to have wives he can control. I doubt a legal adult woman would put up with his shenanigans.
• On the far less serious tip, media studies professor Henry Jenkins explores the marketing strategy behind He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I never realized the cartoon was there only to try and sell the toys. (Check out the link in Jenkins’ post on the worst He-Man toys. I think I had half of them.)
• Dusting off a few more childhood memories, Deadspin’s “Dead Wrestler of the Week” series is back. This week’s tribute is to the Junkyard Dog, one of my favorites from back in the day.
• In the above post, the Deadspin folks discuss the racial implications of Junkyard Dog, a black man who did what he had to do to get over in southern wrestling organizations. Thirty years later, the Highwaymen, a team that uses the Confederate flag as a part of their gimmick is among the most hated in the Florida wrestling scene. Although Central Florida race relations are less stressed than in other parts of the South, the fact that a Confederate tag team is booed shows times have changed.