ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

  • On the Art of Rereading

    “Rereading, not reading, is what counts,” ~ Jorge Luis Borges.  “When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before,” ~ Cliff Fadiman.  ““If a book isn’t worth reading over and over again, it isn’t worth reading at all.” ~ Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Hannah Arendt

    “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.” ~ Hannah Arendt Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: Now Re-Reading Richard Brautigan

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on March 13, 2018. My favorite line in John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley is, “Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” The same could be said of writer Read more

  • Lou Brock

    On September 10th, 1974, Lou Brock tied Maury Wills’ single-season stolen base record with a steal in the first inning against the Philadelphia Phillies. He broke the record with steal No. 105 in the seventh inning. In baseball there are good trades and there are bad trades. The Chicago Cubs trading a young Lou Brock to their division Read more

  • Sometimes the Good Guys Win

    On September 9th, 1990, the OAKLAND Athletics beat the New York Yankees 7-3 to complete a twelve-game sweep of the Yankees that year. The season sweep was a first for the Yankees Sometimes the good guys win, even in baseball which like the economic system it exists in is, by definition, competitively imbalanced. In this Read more

  • LITERARY COFFEE: James Joyce

    There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that’s a coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don’t meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s uniform since he Read more

  • ‘Doc’ Gooden

    Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets struck out Ron Cey of the Chicago Cubs in the second inning – his 228th of the season setting a National League record for a rookie. Gooden passed Grover Alexander, who set the mark with 227 in 1911. New York won 10-0 behind Gooden’s one-hitter. Just for the hell of it, I asked ChatGPT what were Read more

  • Ripken, Ryno, & Time

    On September 6th, 1995,  Cal Ripken, Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive Major League game to surpass Lou Gehrig’s 56-year record. Ripken received a 22-minute standing ovation and went 2-for-4, including a homer, in the Oriole’s 4-2 win over the Angels. It is difficult for me to believe that 30 years have already passed since that day in Read more

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Sinclair Lewis on Fascism

    “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” ~ Sinclair Lewis Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY:”Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on January 27th, 2018. As mentioned in an earlier post here, I have been reading some of the classic Adventure novels that I did not read as a boy or young man. These are books that I Read more