The lowly Rays, doormat of major league baseball for ten years, have come up a big-time winner this year. They will become the Boys of October when the regular season ends, entering the American League divison championship games against the White Sox, with the winner playing the Red Sox or the Angels. Over in the National League, the championship games will probably be Cubs versus the Phillies. This is exciting stuff! I haven't really cared about a baseball team since high school, although I was becoming a Red Sox fan until this year. It is hard to avoid becoming an avid fan of your hometown team.
A couple of minor points that even professional sports writers still can't keep straight: (1) It is no longer the Devil Rays, just the Tampa Bay Rays. And,
(2) It is not the Tampa Rays, the Tampa franchise, or the Tampa team. They are not in Tampa Bay, either. Tampa Bay is a large body of water separating Tampa from St. Petersburg, home of the Rays. Tampa has the Bucs and the Lightning, and used to have the Rowdies. Tampa is also home of the University of South Florida although we are actually in central Florida.
No, to see the Rays you come to Tropicana Field, in St. Petersburg. They play under a big dome, which some people don't like, but they have a huge winning record at home and they never get a rain delay.
Right now, even as we speak, the Rays are winning in Baltimore in typical Rays fashion: Two out in the top of the 8th, and they scored four runs to go ahead of the Orioles by two. Joe Maddon has taken a bunch of unknowns, second choices, kids fresh out of college, kids fresh up from the minors, and a few veterans, and they have blended into a team that wins even with key players on the disabled list. It almost doesn't matter who's sitting on the bench or which positions the guys in the field are playing. They believe in each other and they back each other up.
I made this prediction on this blog on May 28: The World Series will be the Cubs versus the Rays. That sounded good on May 28 and it sounds even more likely now.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
no longer the king
If the one-eyed is king in the land of the blind, my royal status lasted exactly two weeks.
Yesterday, my ophthamologist replaced the lens in my right eye. The experience was, again, painless and brief. The dilation wore off in about 24 hours, and today I drove myself to work. I can't say I rejoined the ranks of the blind, not literally, but I rejoined the ranks of those who don't need corrective lenses to see.
Oh, I'll need reading glasses but I've been using them for years. I'm not clearly seeing the words on my computer monitor as I type this, about 20 inches from my face, but I suspect that will get better with the passage of time. I can read street signs and traffic signals and turn signals, and I can see pedestrians and small animals in the roadway, and I am not a threat to traffic when I drive. I can read the dial on the alarm clock on the other side of the room in the middle of the night for the first time ever.
I will be able to open my eyes in a swimming pool, clear my mask while scuba diving, and crash headfirst down a slope while skiing without fear of losing contact lenses. I can see the score when the Rays are on TV, which has been a sad thing to see the past two nights as the Yankees prove that they've been loafing all season but are waking up in time for the run-up to the post-season.
Some call this operation a miracle. Some call it science fiction, but it isn't fiction. Some just call it wonderful.
Speaking of miracles, when I was about 12 I decided to test my faith by praying that my eyesight would get normal. It didn't, at least not during the next 52 years. I didn't give up on faith, but neither am I calling this experience an answered prayer. It is more of a demonstration that the ability of scientists to learn about the body and how to repair it is a gift of God, and anybody who interferes with science in the name of religion is an ignorant fool.
Yesterday, my ophthamologist replaced the lens in my right eye. The experience was, again, painless and brief. The dilation wore off in about 24 hours, and today I drove myself to work. I can't say I rejoined the ranks of the blind, not literally, but I rejoined the ranks of those who don't need corrective lenses to see.
Oh, I'll need reading glasses but I've been using them for years. I'm not clearly seeing the words on my computer monitor as I type this, about 20 inches from my face, but I suspect that will get better with the passage of time. I can read street signs and traffic signals and turn signals, and I can see pedestrians and small animals in the roadway, and I am not a threat to traffic when I drive. I can read the dial on the alarm clock on the other side of the room in the middle of the night for the first time ever.
I will be able to open my eyes in a swimming pool, clear my mask while scuba diving, and crash headfirst down a slope while skiing without fear of losing contact lenses. I can see the score when the Rays are on TV, which has been a sad thing to see the past two nights as the Yankees prove that they've been loafing all season but are waking up in time for the run-up to the post-season.
Some call this operation a miracle. Some call it science fiction, but it isn't fiction. Some just call it wonderful.
Speaking of miracles, when I was about 12 I decided to test my faith by praying that my eyesight would get normal. It didn't, at least not during the next 52 years. I didn't give up on faith, but neither am I calling this experience an answered prayer. It is more of a demonstration that the ability of scientists to learn about the body and how to repair it is a gift of God, and anybody who interferes with science in the name of religion is an ignorant fool.
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