So, Mrs. Commish and I went out of town last week for a couple of days. We ended up in Southport, NC, a small coastal town south of Wilmington. We had made many day trips to the town via the ferry from our preferred summer beach vacation town(s) of Kure Beach/Carolina Beach over the years and were always intrigued by its historic, small town feel. (Many films and TV shows have filmed there, most notably “Safe Haven”, which a significant other may have forced you to watch in years past. If not, I can highly recommend for the mere presence of Julianne Hough, … but I digress…)
Anyway, we participated in a ghost tour our first night there and passed by a small spooky graveyard for a particularly chilling story. We are both weirdos fond of visiting interesting cemeteries, so we planned a daytime visit for later in the week. Long story short, I did some research beforehand and found a listing and survey of the 1,000 or so graves there. This is an old cemetery dating back to the late 1700s, the type with upright markers and big, stately trees throughout — and on that listing I found a grave with my name on it. If my name was John Smith, not so unusual, but with my name (and the only one in the place with that surname) and a death date from the 1820s, I thought that was one of the neatest things ever. I felt strangely honored by having my name included. We searched the grave out, took pictures, and I left a coin on top as notice that it had been visited.
I have a pretty good grasp on my own mortality and am really okay with it, but seeing my name in lichen covered stone awakened an even keener sense of the fragility and the brief nature of our walk on earth. My dad has been gone for 40 years now. My daughters are grown adults and one has kids of her own now. And it seems like mere months since we were playing in the waves of Kure Beach and traipsing to endless softball practices, not years and years. Heck, the SPFL has been going for two decades!
Mrs. Commish and I were walking hand in hand one day on our trip and I remarked how unbelievable it was that she and I have essentially lived a life together now — met as college kids, married, raised a family, back on our own now, (and still going strong), but … it seems like a vapor in the wind when I look back at it. Almost startling. But … it’s okay. I have great faith in eternity and don’t have any fear that this is all there is. I guess I’m just saying, it goes by fast and I was reminded not to take it for granted.
One of the FF bloggers I follow quoted the old famous Ted Williams story this week and it bears repeating here in light of my keen sense of melancholia this week.
Heading into the last day, a doubleheader, of the 1941 baseball season, 23-year-old Ted Williams’ batting average was .39955. He could have sat out the meaningless last two games of the last day, and his average would have rounded to the hallowed .400 mark.
“In his autobiography, My Turn At Bat, Williams recalls Joe Cronin telling him, ‘You don’t have to be put in if you don’t want to. You’re officially .400.’ Ted reports his reaction: ‘Well, God, that hit me like a ***damn lightning bolt! What do you mean I don’t have to play today?'”
But you probably know the story. Williams put his .400 mark at risk and played. Both games. And went 6 for 8, finishing the year at .406.
That’s badass.
How that applies to you and me is simple. I feel pretty safe in saying we’re not going to hit .400 in the majors. But we all get to walk to the plate every day and take some swings. Take yours.
I agree. Take some swings. Whether it’s dominating the SPFL, attending every concert coming and going, spending time with the kids, watching The Office reruns, or roaming around old cemeteries, take your swings at the pitches that matter to you and make it count.
Week Seven Recap
This past weekend would have been a good weekend to go to a pumpkin patch rather than watch SPFL matchups. Only one was worth much of anything…
Corn 148 – Brothers 143: The Corn picked up a big win, led by what many FF writers are terming a “league winner”, Kenneth Walker III (33). The Brothers fell just short when James Robinson put up a goose egg, negating the best efforts of JaMarr Chase (35) and Raheem Mostert (25).
Moops 177 – Megatron 123: The Moops went big over the Ghost, led by Joe Burrow’s 43 and the Dallas D’s 28. Week One trade pickup Breece Hall put up 15 quick ones before going down with a terrible season ending knee injury. I know you all feel sorry for me, but I was really growing proud of that trade. I took a swing! Unfortunately it was caught on the warning track. Megatron was led by Pat Mahomes (29) and George Kittle (21).
Turned out to be right though…
Turtles 138 – Names 96: The Turtles eased to victory with Austin Ekeler (37) and Rhamondre Stevenson (24) while the No Names had Derrick Henry (19) and Mike Evans (18) and precious little else.
Heroes 113 – Midgets 79: But even worse were the Midgets which had one starting zero and two defenses on bye weeks and the Heroes picked up a cheap W led by Mecole Hardman (28) and Zeke (19). I’m really kind of worried by two of my founding owners performances this year. I’m chalking it up to long term covid.
Lightning 120 – Rings 93: A father/son grudge match was nothing to write home about, as the Lightning struck with Josh Jacobs (38) and Justin Herbert (20) and the Rings had Terry McLaurin and Alvin Kamara put up twin 18 point outings while Michael Gallup posted a goose egg.
1s 106 – Monkeys 79: I will call this one the high channel game of the week, but there were many contenders this time around. The Bright 1s were led by the return of D Hop (20) and the Vegas D (14) while the Monkeys were waylaid by the GTD zero of DeAndre Swift and a negative two point outing by the NIners D.
Next Week:
- Moops/Midgets: Brother against Brother. I’m calling it now, this is the type of game the Midgets will somehow win.
- No Names/Lightning: Same last name, different destinies this year.
- Bull Rings/Corn
- Megatron/Monkeys
- Heroes/1s
- Turtles/Brothers
NFL stuff: Did you see Bailey Zappe singing along to “Stacey’s Mom” on the sideline the other night? Classic. Anyway, the same blogger as the Ted Williams story, posted a video by the same band, better song, to classic NFL scenes. I highly recommend it.
The Redskins ran a raffle for their season ticket holders. The guy that won got a check for $17k from the Commanders. The check bounced. I kid you not. Look it up. Team blamed the bank. Snyder makes me thank my lucky stars for Daddy Jerry.
One last one, if you haven’t seen it, look up the seven second video of Andy Dalton after throwing a pick six last Thursday night and you can see the Arizona Cardinal interceptor in the background soaring across the goal line. Amazing angle.
The Commish