Play Ball

March 21, 2026

I knew the Lake Pleasant campground where we chose to stay was several miles north of the Surprise baseball stadium. When we approached the campground, we saw signs saying the road was closed ahead. Since we did not know another route to the site, we kept driving and hoped for the best. It turned out we got within a mile (1.6 km) of the entrance when we were routed to the south. I asked one of the construction workers as we slowly passed how to get there and was told to take the road to 303 West, then Grand North to 74 East and come back in from the other side. While this sounded simple enough, I did not realize this meant taking an 80-mile (128.7 km) detour. By the time we arrived I was more than a little upset that the camp had failed to mention this small detail. I also wondered what this would mean for driving to Surprise for the three games we had purchased. When I googled the location of the stadium from our campsite, I found that while it was farther than I expected, it was only about 5 miles (8 km) more than without the detour (down to Surprise then up to the campground). The next day we made allowances for the distance and arrived in time to be seated along the first base line before the start of the game. After the traditional “first pitch” by some unknown local celebrity we heard the umpire cry, “Play Ball”.

When I went online, I found in the US, “play ball” generally means “play baseball,” though the usage is often heard in connection with football, basketball, and other sports. The phrase, or various versions, were in use hundreds of years before baseball was invented. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the expression simply referred to a game played with a ball. Concerning baseball, the Dickson Baseball Dictionary (3rd ed.) defines “play ball!” as “the command issued by the plate umpire to start a game or to resume action but it is sometimes abbreviated to a simple order of ‘play!’” Dickson quotes from the Boston Globe (May 13, 1886) the first use in newsprint: “McKeever held a long discussion with Pitcher Harmon about signs. The crowd got impatient; one man yelled ‘Get a telephone!’ while the umpire ordered them to ‘play ball.’” The phrase caught on and showed up a few years later in in James Maitland’s, The American Slang Dictionary (1891): “Play ball (Am.), go on with what you are about.” Dickson says, “play ball” has a special meaning to baseball fans and is the “emblematic phrase for the start of any baseball game.”

We were able to see the Royals play three games in Surprise. Tuesday night they played the Dodgers in a packed house. The temperature at “Play Ball” was 99F (37C). We left with a 4-4 tie in the eighth inning and heard they ended up losing 12-4. The next night it was 102F (39C) at the start. The Royals share the field with the Texas Rangers and were considered the away team on that night. They lost 10-2. On Thursday they played the Angels and the temperature at the start was 106F (41C). While the desert has a “dry heat”, it was still hot every night. The worst part was the World Baseball Classic wrapped up last weekend and most of the players we came to see were not suited up. The Royals had 14 players in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, with 10 of them on the 40-man US roster, causing some to name this the “Royal Baseball Classic”. The final saw Venezuela beat the US 3-2 with a 9th inning double. I guess that made us 0-4 for the weekend. Check my bucket list.

THOUGHTS: While the emblematic phrase may be “play ball”, the official umpires rule book states the game is to be started when the umpire points to the pitcher and says, “play”. Despite this rule, most fans (like me) still hold out for and can even hear the traditional shout. I have found in most things our traditions tend to overrule our rules, at least in our minds. What one believes can be more important than the facts. However, there are times when we should try and go with the facts. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.

NFL Draft

May 10, 2025

Sarah Kloepping/USA Today

The Sunday edition of my local newspaper (yes, it is Saturday) ran a USA Today article on the donations made by the National Football League (NFL) after the draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin. While some pieces arNFL Drafte returned to their owners, the NFL is donating material and other items to local organizations. That is up to 30 truckloads of food and reusable items. Ryan Sclar of ENGIE Impact, a part of the NFL’s green team, said, “It’s really important to the NFL that not only when they come in for a big event are they having a spectacular fan experience, but that they are leaving a really good legacy.” The NFL and the Green Bay Packers are working with community members throughout Green Bay and the surrounding area to donate reusable items. Recipients include Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, Oneida Nation, various school districts, and government entities. These donations continue the economic impact of the NFL draft to the area.

When I went online, I found the NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the source of player recruitment in the NFL. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative to its record in the previous year. Teams with the same record rotate their order for each round of the draft. A team can either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions, a player, or players, or any combination of those options. The round is complete when each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. The first draft was held in 1936 and the rational was to increase the competitive parity between the teams as the worst team would be able to choose the best player available. Early on, players were chosen based on hearsay, print media, or evidence of ability. Some franchises began employing full-time scouts in the 1940’s and the success of these teams forced the other franchises to also hire scouts. While things like team positioning and the number of draft rounds (currently at 7) have been revised since its creation, the fundamental method remains the same.

Edwin Stueck, a store manager for Greater Green Bay Habitat for Humanity ReStore, said donations raise money for their homeowner and building-homes programs. Lowes asked that items from the green room (large rugs, coffee tables and lamps) be donated to Habitat for Humanity homeowners. Volunteers with Rooted In, Inc, worked with 17 different spots to pick up trays of unused catered food to be picked up, refrigerated, and donated it to 13 Green Bay area groups. The Packers have their own sustainability program and worked with the NFL to identify local groups that could use wood from various structures, fence mesh, pieces of metal, flag poles, and other items. The NFL rents a great deal of what goes into building a draft campus, such as fences, generators, lights, stage pillars, and portable restrooms. Sustainability has become a major component of many companies, organizations and individual households. The NFL Draft is yet another example.

THOUGHTS: While the NFL Draft is an example, The NFL says sustainability is a core focus and the league is committed to reducing the environmental impact at each event. Last year’s Draft donations of over US$200,000 in food and materials were exceeded by US$500,000 from Green Bay. The NFL asks fans to help reduce waste by recycling and ensuring recyclables are empty, clean, and dry. We have a new (retired schoolteacher) in charge of our recycling site. When I pulled in, he was inspecting the items the woman had brought and instructing her on what was permissible and about crushing cans and plastic to save room in the bins. Even as a conscientious recycler, I learned some things as well. Recycling is more than dumping trash in a bin. It is an attitude toward sustainability. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.

Bracketology

March 26, 2025

The first weekend of the college basketball playoffs is over and I have life in my brackets. This year I filled online for a initial bracket, an alternate bracket, and a best guess bracket. I also filled out hard copy brackets, so I pulled that from the newspaper. Then Melissa said she would like to do a head-to-head challenge (hardcopy) so I filled out another one for her. I then filled out two online brackets for the women’s championship. There seem to be two approaches toward filling out these predictive brackets. One is the purist approach where only one bracket is allowed. The other is to fill out as many brackets as possible (a maximum of 25 are allowed by ESPN) and try to gauge all the nuances that might be possible, given upsets and close matchups. I find myself somewhere in the middle, counting my initial bracket as the “true” representation but still filling out several more brackets for luck. This annual event for men’s and women’s basketball has become known as bracketology.

When I looked online, I found Bracketology is the process of predicting the participants in the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The name comes from the predictions made while filling in tournament brackets for the postseason. This process uses some method of predicting the metrics the NCAA Selection Committee will use, such as the rating percentage index through the 2018 tournament, and the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) since 2019, in order to determine at-large (non-conference winning) teams to complete the field of 68 teams, and to seed the field by ranking all teams from first through sixty-eighth. Bracketology also encompasses the process of predicting the winners of each of the brackets. Joe Lunardi is credited with inventing the term bracketology. On February 25, 1996, The Philadelphia Inquirer referred to Lunardi as a bracketologist, which is the first known instance the term was applied to a college basketball expert. Lunardi soon started the website Bracketology.net, and ESPN began running his predictions in exchange for a link to his website. By 2002, Lunardi had his own Bracketology page with ESPN. In recent years the concept of bracketology has been applied to areas other than basketball.

My efforts at bracketology have only been fruitful in one of the men’s brackets. My purist bracket chose Duke as the winner but only matched 56.8% of the actual winners through the first weekend. My alternate bracket selected Auburn as the winner and has done much better, choosing 96.7% of the winners and ranking 792,137th on the ESPN site. The best guess bracket did the worst, choosing Michigan State as the eventual winner and choosing a lowly 17.9% of the winners. By contrast both of my women’s brackets have done well. My initial bracket chose U Conn as the champion and scored 97.6% of all winners. My alternate chose OU as the champion and came in at an astounding 99%. I do not follow college basketball (except for favorite teams) other than during championship season. Still, this time of year causes me to watch games I would otherwise skip and the first weekend provided several exciting games. One of my bracket busters was the Hogs of Arkansas who took two underdog games, including from St. John’s who I had predicted to go to the elite eight. There are no perfect brackets left for the men (out of 24,388.569) and only 25 for the women (out of 3,425,826). I guess that is why they call it bracketology (the study of brackets).

THOUGHTS: To try and keep the public involved in the sport (and betting), ESPN has another chance at Bracketology by offering a second chance option. This starts with Sweet 16 participants and allows you to select who will win based on those still in the tournament. This did not spark my interest. If I do not get it right the first time(s), I am not trying again. I understand the allure, however. In life we need to both alter our initial approach and try again. Life is not a predictable bracketology. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.