Go, Mariners! Part III: You Get What You Pay For

Alvarez launches game-winner, Oct. 13.

	2022 Record	MLB rank (of 30)	2002 Team payroll	MLB rank
Seattle Mariners	90-72	9	$107 million	22
Houston Astros	106-56	2	$176 million	10

[MLB Teams With Highest 2022 Payrolls: Dodgers on Top | BetMGM]

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Adventures in Reading Part I: Why I Don't Read Novels Anymore

February 18, 2022 Something on the Internet recently reminded me that this month marks the Centennial of the publication of the much-celebrated and seldom-read novel Ulysses by James Joyce. It may have been an article in the New Yorker : “Getting to Yes,” by Merve Emre, an Oxford scholar. [i] I read the article with an interest that was mixed with a specific nostalgia for the times (twice) that I read Ulysses (lo these many years ago), and a more general nostalgia for the times I read fiction at all. It seems I don’t read novels anymore and I wonder what happened. The last novel I read was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. According to my “Read (already been read)” [ii] list on Goodreads, I finished it in August, 2020, a year and a half ago. I’m fairly certain that’s the longest novel-free period of my life, at least since I started reading fiction while in junior high school, more than 55 years ago. I’m wondering now whether to star...

Tattered Blue Genes

Tattered Blue Genes My chromosomes are jumbled up, but I still got twenty-three With genes a-plenty, all mixed up From Ma and Pa, and their Mas and Pas that somehow make up “Me.” Momma had blue eyes, So do I. Daddy had brown eyes; Their genes are why. Sister got the brown eyes, pretty impressive. I got the blue ones; I think they recessive. Talkin’ about brains, it was easy to see I was taller than than them, but uh, They was both smarter than me. I’ve managed to get old, Thru no virtue of my own, Ain’t no denyin’. Just the luck o’ the draw, And I ain’t afraid of dyin’ Just lucky to be here, Got to be this age, Tho’ my powers is declinin’ Natural thing at this stage, so uh, Ain’t no use whinin’. These genes o’mine will go unsown, All o’ which, I don’t mind sayin’: Sweet bird o’ youth has flown. I’m the last o’ the line Which I find a bit dismayin’. Them other people’s genes will do just fine But my telomeres are...

Lost Fragment of Marcus Aurelius

“On Losing Again in the Tournament” Meditations , Book XXIV, lines 50-62 (My translation) Now again our brave lads lie bleeding and broken on the hardwood, Ridden roughshod over by the implacable foe, Yea, the merciless mercenary host from the East, And abandoned again by the unjust zebra-striped officials. And scorned by the scurrilous scribes. Now, again, our fondest hopes are dashed, Our families and friends cover their faces to hide their shame and grief. Even before the tender buds sprout from the trees, And the crocus and daffodil shoot forth from the wet dirt, Lo, the birds, so unconcerned with the affairs of men, Sing from the branches, searching for mates. So again, as every year, our fondest aspirations lie ruin’d in dust, Therefore, we must compose our hearts and minds, Equanimously to relearn the lesson we have learned every year, But have apparently forgotten, our memories annually befogged by Lethe: O, fellow fans! Why rend your raim...

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