Letters to the Editor
timbuktom
Published Letters: 2502 Editor's Choice: 141
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That Baseball Accent
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Baseball broadcasters use the word that much more often than regular Americans. As Andy Rooney might say, do you ever notice how often broadcasters say, "that slider," "that right field line," "that third base position," and so on?
For example: "That breaking ball coming in and catching that inside corner of that plate is almost unhittable." When they speak this way, they usually are not speaking about any specific pitch. Rather, they are referencing baseball archetypes, the curveball as a cosmic concept, the inside corner as a fixed lodestar in the baseball heavens.
Rod Allen, who does a wonderful job broadcasting the Tigers, speaks this way for parts of every broadcast. Beloved, all-time-great Ron Santo does it every day when he broadcasts the Cubs. National broadcasters do it as well. Tonight, if you listen for it, you almost certainly will hear it, no matter what team you listen to.
I hear baseball managers and coaches talk this way as well. It seems to be a long-accepted aspect of baseball culture and baseball philosophy.
Nothing in baseball is new. Every pitch, swing, catch, throw has happened before many times, over many years. Each play we will see tonight will be a new manifestation of a very old pattern.
For baseball people, it seems the patterns are more real than the actual plays. The particular way that third baseman picks up that bunt down that third baseline from that speedy leadoff hitter just adds a tiny wrinkle to the universal reality of that eternal baseball pattern.
This actually is Platonic; it is a manifestation of Plato's philosophy, as Plato wrote it in Greek, in the fifth century BCE. Baseball seems to validate Plato's ideas. Rod Allen and Ron Santo, have you studied Plato? If not, don't bother. You already get it. You could teach that Plato.
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And then there is Spanish pronunciation. Most baseball broadcasters still seem to pronounce most Latin American players' names as if they were English. They do not say, "Sahntahnah," when they refer to Johann Santana, the Twins Venezuelan pitcher. They say, "Santana," with the a's sounding like the a in the English word at.
However, I once heard Jose Canseco pronounce his own last name with that English-sounding a sound.
So what gives? Are our announcers sort of out of it, even after all these years with all these Latin ballplayers? Or are the ballplayers changing the way they say their own names? Or???
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Generalization - Maybe Too Much
[Read the article: The piston ring earthquake]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Great info on Riken and Toyot(d)a here! But you may be tending too much toward using them as examples of Japanese Industry and The Japanese Approach and The Japanese Nation.
We Americans have good auto companies too. Current examples are Lear and Johnson Controls. Lear just fought off a Carl Ichan takeover, and its stock went up afterwards. Johnson Controls just announced good profits.
These are boring examples, but they make a point:
We are NOT involved in an auto industry war war against Japan and China and Germany and Mexico. Rather, we have some good companies, and they have some good companies. The good companies in each country have much in common with one another. Riken has more in common with Lear than with many Japanese companies.
Globalisation is a bitch. It creates strange bedfellows. But it is not a nationalistic jihad. No call here for national reform or for protectionism. Just a call for good management, good manufacturing, good marketing, and a bit of wisdom and luck.
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Somebody, Please Pour It On More
[Read the article: Shot across the bow]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hilary might come out strong, saying that W. Bush fooled her just as he fooled the rest of us. She should say that she strongly, bitterly regets her vote in favor of Iraq.
She, or anybody, could create a clear alternative to the Republican brutal weasals. Why in the world does she not do it?
People who voted for W. Bush want a leader who says that W. Bush fooled them. Then, they can change sides, and vote for Hillary. My mother is one such person.
Simple. Make a big point of how he fooled you, how embarrassed you are to be fooled, but you never will be fooled again.
Many women love Hillary's accomplishments, but they need absolution in order actually to vote for her, especially given that their near-Alsheimers, formerly-okay-but-now-simple-minded old husbands hate Hillary for no good reason.
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Letter Writer, Please Laugh! Cary Rocks!
[Read the article: My therapist is making faces at me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Letter Writer,
1. The squinty eyes tell you to run. You have seen those squinty eyes on Republican politicians, bad bosses, drunken fratenity guys, and other worthless sacks.
2. Cary Tennis (if that is his or her real name) is notoriously squinty. Please take his or her sassy advice for what it is worth. And it is worth its weight in gold. Make up your own mind! Run free under the mushroom cloud! Stop taking your medication and marry a reptile!
What the heck?
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Cosmic Questions for David Buckley
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What position did you play in softball? What country did you come here from? France, maybe????
Even I, great American that I am, was not good at our national passtime until I got into my twenties and started playing softball. Then, I became solidly mediocre. So, please, my foreign pal, do not worry about it. Just keep on chuckin and chucklin.
King, our guiding compass needle, our source-for-undetectably-stolen-sports-quotes, come back! Write! Write, please! David and I and millions of other great Americans miss you.
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Not Clear At All!
[Read the article: Bush signs executive order on interrogation practices]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One clear word from W. Bush, and all torture would stop. All this pussy-footing is shameful. I cannot believe that the President of the United States hides behind the fiction that "torture" is a hard word to define.
And Romney and Guiliani specifcally say they like torture a lot.
Please, some Democrat, tell us you will end torture by Americans.