Parting Shot

     “Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
     “The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
     “And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
     “But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.”
     When Ernest Lawrence Thayer wrote his immortal homage to baseball and what it feels like to lose in The San Francisco Examiner - June 3, 1888, he probably could not have guessed that every season baseball fans who live and die by the sport, and somehow for that year came up short would somewhere in their pain think of his poem.
     Yesterday The New York Yankees 2007 season ended when they were defeated by the Cleveland Indians.
     Amidst rumblings from the team’s louse of an owner, that the great manager Joe Torre would be fired if the team did not win, the Yankees succumbed to an improbable year when they were so bad at the beginning and then so great during the second half, right up to the end.
     The wait for pitchers and catchers to show up for Spring Training now begins anew.
     Four and a half months of no baseball.
     And please don’t count the continued playoffs and upcoming World Series.
     Baseball is over for 2007, period.
     A heavy sky loomed over New York City all day Tuesday October 9 after some unseasonable weather that made Gotham feel like August, was finally replaced by the bright snap of October.
     But the gray skies were welcome and merciful as the sting of defeat sunk in.
     No way a day after the loss the New York Yankees took, should be bright and sunny.
     Now the hot stove baseball begins as we wonder what the team will look like and who will manage the Yankees in 2008.
     Many of us are hoping the owner changes his mind and despite the loss, brings back Joe Torre.
     He is the greatest manager that a team with a line up of great managers, has ever had.
     So instead of getting some better pitching and getting rid of some overpriced players, now Joe Torre is on the owner’s hot seat.
     But this owner also declares that the 85 year old Yankee Stadium is “The “Cathedral of Sports,” while replacing it with a giant new ballpark so he can make more money even after the Yankees are the most popularly attended team in baseball.
     Only in America, do we tear down cathedrals.
     Meantime for the rest of us, “wait ’til next year” is our battle cry now.
(For Emily)
Geoffrey

Contact! Talk To Geoffrey

Dear Geoffrey:

     Get your head out of the fifties.
     Your team today proves again that you can't buy a championship every year. There has to be some spark and fire like the Indians and the Rockies have.
     Go Rockies!
     By the way, I think a lot of Joe Torre, but you have way overrated him.
     Anyway, for the rest of the country there's still a lot of baseball left, which you would be watching if you really loved the sport and not just some romantic concept you have of it.
     On the other hand, I have to congratulate you for broaching the subject, when most publications are strictly and often boringly business-only.
     Keep up the good work!

Best wishes,

Dave Lucia
President
Security Cargo Network, Inc.
PO Box 22477
Denver, CO 80222-0477 USA
PH: 303-759-8697
FX: 303-759-9066
dlucia@securitycargonetwork.comDear Geoffrey,

     I like your publication regarding matters related to the air cargo business, but I take exception to your article “Parting Shot,” or should I say editorial
on the NY Yankees and their demise in the 2007 playoffs.
     First off despite your thinking the baseball 2007 season is not over!
     Major League Baseball does not revolve only around the $230 million (payroll) New York Yankees,
     Your comment that "baseball is over in 2007 period," is an insult to fans across the country and certainly those people still following their teams in the playoffs.
     New York City was anything but gray yesterday, for many baseball fans. From my window it was a beautiful day!
      We are in agreement in one area and that is the owner of the Yankees is a louse, a crook, a cheat and a convicted felon that was banned for life from baseball and should have never have been allowed to return.
     Joe Torre (team manager) may in fact be a scapegoat for the Yankees, but being real, he is given more
resources to get the job done then any other manager in baseball year after year.
     My dog should be able to manage this team and still win.
     Wake up, the ridiculous spending of the Yankee's year after year exceeds by $100 million as compared to their closest rivals, and that's just is not good for baseball period!
     In my land the Yankee loss has favored a shining bright sun, the band is playing, men are laughing and little children are celebrating and rejoicing and Joy still reigns in Mudville.
     Casey just hit a Grand Slam!
(For Yankee haters everywhere)

Jim Barruch
jim.barruch@us.euro-cargo.com
Dear Dave & Jim,

     Thanks for writing.
     We go to as many Yankees games as we can afford and sit in the cheap seats and never leave, win or lose until the last pitch is thrown.
     Often we are amazed at the simple elegance of the game; of how the players move as the ball is pitched anticipating what will happen next; of the bunt and the double steal and the rich loamy smell of the field itself in early July, as flowers surround Monument Park where a collection of the greatest players to ever set foot on any baseball filed are immortalized.
     Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Thurman Munson are all there with others at the big ballpark in the Bronx, New York, and we all watch Yankee baseball together.
     Sometimes Yogi even shows up and throws out the first ball.
     I am feeling no better today.
     Time, it is said, heals all wounds, and in baseball the prospect of another game and even many more games to come in a 162-game season is another marvel of the sport.
     I suppose that is what I am saddest about right now.
     No more games to come, no more baseball charts or snappy tabloid headlines on the back page of the New York Daily News.
     Baseball is a moveable feast that lasts six months out of every year.
     When it is over, the withdrawal—win or lose—is always a time of melancholy
     The truth be told, I will probably watch at least some parts of the playoffs and World Series, although even as a native Ohioan it will be hard to root for the Cleveland Indians.
     Cleveland, a fine old organization in baseball still allows players to wear caps with a racist image on it, beat my Yankees this year.
     But any team should win except the Boston Red Sox.
     I guess they play baseball and have fields of dreams in Colorado too and that’s good.
     If we are near the ballpark and a game is going on, you can count us there.

Greetings,
Geoffrey