Fan Interference

 

I learned yesterday that five weeks from now I will no longer be regularly seeing the human being that outside of my family I love more than any other of the 7 1/2 half billion human beings currently alive. We call him Raph (Raphael) and he’ll turn four at about the same time. He’s moving on to pre school as he should. We started hanging out together in September of 2015 when he was about ten weeks old. That was about two and a half months after I spent two weeks watching my mother die. And in the midst of my son’s mental health crisis. When every day was a wakeup to bedtime nightmare of calls and texts concerning the latest horrible development. Through the end of that year and into the first month or so of the next year I went to sleep each night not really caring if I woke up the next morning – except for knowing that I had bottles to give and diapers to change including, especially, Raphie. Last November when my mentally ill son was off the rails again his wife and I returned to my house after having finally coaxed him out of that shit hole tent city for the homeless. Doing that included a scene in the emergency room which I don’t ever want to talk about. When we got back Raphie saw the look on my face and climbed up on my lap and hugged me with his whole body.

That’s the secret. I never held him he always held me.

The God of every soul is different and the same so bring your own

Division leader showdowns

Friday – Twins 5 Indians 3 | Saturday – Twins 6 Indians 2

The Twins entered the weekend with a 5 1/2 game lead and will now leave it with either a 6 1/2 or 8 1/2 game lead. BTW sexy Maxie homered off Trever Bauer in two consecutive at bats establishing a streak of five homers in consecutive at bats against Bauer which they said is some kind of record.

Friday – Royals 8 Tigers 5 | Saturday – Royals 4 Tigers 1

The Tigers move into a tie with the Royals on Friday and surge past them on Saturday.

Clash of wild card rivals

Friday – Nationals 4 Phillies 0 | Saturday – Nationals 4 Phillies 3

The baseballyest game of the weekend.

Friday – Angels 13 Mariners 0 | Saturday – Angels 9 Mariners 2

The Angels Cole and Pena throw a combined no hitter, which was just one walk away from being a perfect game on Tyler Skaggs day. The Gods swirling presence was in the air as the Angels score a lucky seven runs in the first on route to thirteen runs, thirteen hits, on the day before what would have been Tyler Skaggs 28^th birthday, July 13, 2019. And here’s another numerically obsessed fact that’s been drug out – the last combined no hitter pitched in the sovereign state of California was on July 13, 1991, the day Tyler Skaggs was born.

It just occurred to me that my mother died at exactly 12 PM on Babe Ruth day – 7/14/2015 (Babe Ruth – 714 career home runs – for all you communists that didn’t already know that). I remember it exactly because me and my brother had been sitting in her room in the hospice and I had been watching her chest to see if it was still moving up and down. I went outside for a few minutes to take a phone call and when I came back in I resumed my watch. After I noticed that I hadn’t seen any chest movement for about 240 seconds I mentioned it to my brother who called the nurse in. She did her nurse thing and pronounced her death to be exactly at noon. Today’s Twins game starts at noon.

Can’t forget – Mr. Trout – three for four plus a walk, six RBI, scored two, hit his 29^th homer on Tyler Skaggs Day. Update: he hit his 30th homer on Tyler Skaggs’s birthday.

Friday – Cubs 4 Pirates 3 | Saturday –  Cubs 10 Pirates 4

Friday – Rays 16 Orioles 4 | Saturday – Orioles 2 Rays 1 Rays 12 Orioles 4

Friday – Yankees 4 Blue Jays 0 | Saturday – Blue Jays 2 Yankees 1

Friday – Red Sox 8 Dodgers 1 | Saturday – Dodgers 11 Red Sox 2

Friday – Marlins 8 Mets 4 | Saturday – Mets 4 Marlins 2

Friday – Rangers 9 Astros 8 | Saturday – Astros 7 Rangers 6 (F/11)

Friday – Giants 10 Brewers 7 | Saturday – Brewers 5 Giants 4

Friday – Diamondbacks 4 Cardinals 2 | Saturday – Cardinals 4 Diamondbacks 2

Friday – Rockies 3 Reds 2 | Saturday – Reds 17 Rockies 9

Friday – Athletics 5 White Sox 1 | Saturday – Athletics 13 White Sox 2

Friday – Braves 5 Padres 3 | Saturday – Braves 7 Padres 5 (F/10)

This is from a movie I saw back around 1962 when I was a year or few older than Raphie is now, I sang it to him at bottle time not realizing that he was singing to me.