What Inspires Me? Little League Diamond on Diamonds
Little League Baseball’s Diamond Jubilee is on!
For 75 years 4–16-year-old Little League players have been suiting up and taking to the field to pitch, catch, throw—Play Baseball!
These past few weeks, 11- & 12-year-old Little League baseball teams have been competing in the regional playoffs. Winner from each division will face off in the 2022 Little League World Series beginning August 17, 2022!
Let me repeat: 11 & 12 year olds, little boys who still have to be home before the street lights and be reminded to brush their teeth—and may not yet have enough equipment to fill out athletic supporters— competing in games as heated, intense, dramatic as an Major League Baseball match up!
Just how good can these Little Leaguers be?
On August 8th, a 12-year-old on the Honolulu Little League, Jaron Lancaster, blasted the ball clear out of the park.
Jaron’s moonshot flew over the outfield fence and almost over the outside fence. Regulation dimensions for little league fields specify that the distance from “the back point of home plate to the outfield fence should be at least 200 feet, but not more than 275 feet” which means Jaron’s moonshot was way more than 200 feet.
Click over to watch Jaron Lancaster’s 2 Run homer!
According to Quora, “The vast majority of hits in baseball are singles, and the average distance that a hit travels is between 100 and 120 feet.” That’s a grown adult twice as big and strong as any of these middle-graders hitting!
11-and 12-year-olds with the physical prowess, commitment, courage to play as good and as hard as they do under such pressure! Now that’s inspiring!
The 2022 Little League World Series will be held in Williamsport, PA—August 17-28th. Honolulu will play Long Island’s own Massapequa Little League. (Yes, I’ll be watching.)
For the first time since 2019, International Teams will be competing and fans will crowd the stands—that’s 10 U.S. teams and 10 from other countries. Watch to see some exciting inspiring play!
Here’s How to watch the 2022 Little League World Series, Schedule & Brackets!
What Inspires Me? Music Memory
Anyone doubting the impact music, dance, art has on our lives take a look.
Marta Cinta Gonzalez a once prima ballerina who’s age is unknown because she intentionally falsified records and when asked declared herself 40, is locked down due to old age and Alzheimer—physically and mentally—but Marta still—always—danced!
BTW: This video was uploaded in October 2018 by by Asociacion Musica para Despertar, a Spanish organization that promotes music therapy. Marta has since died. Click over to read more about Marta’s Swan Lake not Marta’s Swan Song!
Picture Books about Dancing get everyone moving! Here’s a great list!
And for all the rest who scampered to art, music, dance class, like me, clutching a plasticine Barbie Ballet shoe case, with prima ballerina dreams dancing in your head…enjoy!
And thank you Bright Vibes to bring hopeful stories like this.
BTW. This video was uploaded in October 2018 by by Asociacion Musica para Despertar, a Spanish organization that promotes music therapy. Marta has sense died.
Click over to read more about Marta’s Swan Lake not Marta’s Swan Song!
Let her memory inspire us to sing and dance with our children.
Play on! Dance On! Dream On!
What Inspires Me? Little Free Libraries
Take a Book: Share a Book
I was at a Texas Library Association (TLA) meeting once when author Laurie Halse Anderson called us all “Book Sluts.” Silence, gasps, nervous twitters, guffaws followed when she explained. “You all will read anything.” I did say “us.” And what eventually happens we go from Book Sluts to Book Hoarders. I’m guilty too. Every room in my house has at least one bookcase, book basket, book “decorative display” . . . Open a nightstand in a guest room hoping to find a spot to stow your stuff—fat chance! they too are stacked with books.
Dead Tree Turned Little Free Library! Who wouldn’t want to check it out?
Fast forward to 2018 when my family granted my birthday wish by surprising me with a Little Free Library of my very one—custom built with a rooftop garden by son Max.
Honestly, filling it that first time was a Sophie’s Choice. After all, the first part of the Little Free Library motto is “Take a Book.” Which of my zillions of babies could I stock it with knowing I might never get to see them, touch them, read them again?
I managed to curate what I considered a fine blend of books for all ages—especially picture books—classics and new releases, pop and literary (no judging) and some ARCs (the perk of being a TLA/ALA/ILA attendee and occasional reviewer).
My Very Own Little Free Library! Mary Lee Donovan’s A Hundred Thousand Welcomes didn’t last long.
That was in August of 2018. Frankly, although I was especially attentive: watching, weeding, rotating those first six months, I didn’t have many visitors. Doubt crept in: was my Little Free Library a flop? And then came March 2019.
Libraires closed. Stores closed. Work closed. School closed. Winter. Dark. Scary.
Little Free Library at a Gas Station in Ladysmith, VA. Fill your mind while you fill your tank!
My Little Free Library turned out to be a bright spot in our lonely quiet village. Suddenly, my LFL was a hopping spot. My books flew out faster than I could restock. My fear about what I could part with caused me to make some rash decisions—and do some strategic planning. I found myself testing visitor’s literary tastes by stocking one in a series. If it went, I’d put in another by the same author, and so on.
And then, just when restocking was beginning to hurt (some shelves were actually not sagging any longer) the other half of the Little Free Library motto happened: Visitors began sharing books! Lots of books! Sure a few dusty moldy collections, but mostly interesting reads. Some even wrote notes: “Read Me! Choose Me!” “This was my favorite!”
That was CoVid, we were all worried, so I’d rotate books to ensure they had a mandatory 72 hour kill-the-bug period, and I disinfected the heck out of my Little Library.
Microwaves, Fine Cabinets, Old Tin Boxes, Ovens…Libraries!
If anyone happened to visit my LFL I’d hide or drive right by. Not because I was scared to talk to them. But because so often visitors have a guilty look on their faces as they riffle through the books. As though they’re doing something naughty. Finally, one of my deepest darkest wishes had been granted: I had created a “Guilty Pleasure!”
Ohio-Pyle, PA—Where the rivers—bikers, hikers, rafters—readers—converge
Who inspires me: Todd Bol, who is 2009, built a model of a one room schoolhouse, posted it in his front yard and filled it with books. According to the Little Free Library website, “His neighbors and friends loved it, so he built several more and gave them away.” Then Rick Brooks heard what Todd was doing and they teamed up to make Little Free Library something more.
In the early days of Little Free Library, Todd Bol said he’d be happy if 2000 books were exchanged. At the time of his death in 2018, the organization he founded with Rick Brooks, celebrated it’s 75,000th Little Free Library. In 2022, there are over 150,000 registered Libraries in more than 115 countries.
Todd Bol and his first Little Free Library
“I really believe in a Little Free Library on every block and a book in every hand. I believe people can fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop systems of sharing, learn from each other, and see that they have a better place on this planet to live.”
(Before you ask, yes, I did think that a picture book about Todd Bol and Little Free Library was a great idea. Margret Aldrich beat me to it! And so did Miranda Paul with Little Libraries; Big Heroes
Keep your eyes open, Little Free Libraries are everywhere, made from everything: trees, microwaves, filing cabinets and wood.
When you travel, find a LFL nearby—you don’t need a card to check out books! What’s more, you can lighten your baggage as deposits are always welcome.
And, if, like mine, your shelves are bowing—and I know they are you
Book S…Hoarder you! —maybe it’s time for a LFL of your own. Visit LittleFreeLibrary.org for more.
What Inspires Me? Canada Did Something!
We talk-talk-talk about plastic waste while garbage islands—the size of Texas—float through the Pacific. We talk-talk-talk about overflowing land fill, about reduce and reuse. We talk. And we “bribe” ourselves to use less plastic with returnable deposits and nickel/dime bag charges and pat ourselves on the back when we put plastics into recycle bins to be repurposed and call it “doing something.”
Canada actually did something.
This is a photo of one of the huge plastic islands —See anything you discard?
Last Month the Canadian Government passed a ban on six categories of single-use plastic manufacture, import, export and sale.
A ban that begins now and will be fully implemented by the end of 2025.
“WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR A LAW TO BE PASSED—LET’S ACT UNLAWFULLY!
LET’S BAN SINGLE-USE PLASTIC THE EASY WAY—-DON’T BUY IT! DON’T USE IT!”
This is our park, our garbage cans, our picnic leavings—3 points for cleaning up after ourselves…but did we?
You may not remember it, but back in the good-old days, right here in the good old U.S of A, the highways, byways, parks, roadsides, parking lots were festooned with—trash! And everyone seemed fine with it. Really!
After all tossing trash out the window or into the bushes is easier, isn’t it? After all, isn’t that what all the marvelous new-fangled plastic, cardboard, Styrofoam containers and utensils are made for—one use and toss? So easy! Whooppee!
It took then first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, a shy thoughtful woman who loved flowers and nature, to say “Enough!” Convinced cleaner highways and streets would “make American a better place to live” Lady Bird launched her “anti-littering” campaign—publicly (and privately, no doubt). On Oct. 22nd, 1965, her husband, LBJ, signed the Highway Beautification Act.
Now, thanks to Lady Bird, while many of us still do it, we find littering deplorable. Doubt me? When the series Mad Men aired an episode where the Drapper family goes on a picnic and tosses their trash viewers were outraged. Here’s the Mad Men Picnic Littering clip.
But here’s the thing. We Americans don’t like anyone—especially “Government”—telling us what to do. We don’t want to be bossed around! We don’t like bans. Do we?
So why wait? Let’s show them who’s BOSS!
Let’s simply STOP! Stop buying and using single-use plastic. (And Styrofoam, too, while we’re at it. Styrofoam is as bad, worse than plastic.) But how? you ask. Below is a handy-dandy 5-item list of ways to stop buying and using single-use plastic.
“Hint: As Lady Bird did with her anti-littering campaign, get the kids involved. Let them help you—and us—be the change. ”
BYOB! BBD! BYOS! BYOC! BYOU!
Just as with using seatbelts, it might be uncomfortable at first, but we’ll get used to it!
What Inspires Me? The Perfect Game
While I was recently reminded (by The NY Yankees Museum Curator) that “perfect pitch” is a musical term, not a baseball term, there is such a thing as a perfect pitch. This is what a perfect pitch looks like.
Don Larsen’s final “Perfect Game” pitch to Yogi Berra
The “Ball Wall” exhibit in the NY Yankees Museum shows the trajectory of Don Larsen’s final (97th) pitch to Yogi Berra on October 8, 1956, in game 5 of the 1956 World Series, against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.
The "Ball Wall" features hundreds of balls autographed by past and present Yankees. There’s even a touch-screen finder to help fans locate their favorite players autographed ball.
The NY Yankees Museum is open to the public—tours are available. And the Museum is open on home-day games to ticketholders.
Cy Young, the winningest pitcher in baseball history, pitched three no-hitters over his professional baseball career, only one of which was a perfect game, for the Boston Americans in 1904.
As I write, there are fourteen MLB games scheduled. Weather permitting, that means that at least 28 MLB pitchers will take the mound, wind up and fire off perfect pitches—lots of them.
On average according Baseball Scouter, “each Major League Baseball (MLB) team throws an average of 146 pitches” during the course of a game.
Some of those pitchers might even throw no-hitters (alone or combined), although it could take the 120, 130, maybe even 140 pitches to do it.
But just imagine, a pitcher, over the course of nine innings, firing baseballs into the strike zone so fast, so hard, with so much finesse that though one after the other batters try—MLB Batters! the heaviest of heavy hitters! —they can’t get on base. Three hitter up-Three hitters down. Nine times. 27 batters who strike out, fly out, or are tagged out. Game over! A Perfect Game.
What are the chances of that? To date, there have been only 23 perfect games in MLB history, but only ONE in World Series competition!
“The “Perfect” Perfect Game would be one in which the pitcher threw each batter out on the first pitch. The batter would have to swing on the first pitch and fly out or get tagged out running to first. 27 pitches.”
While a Perfect Game in baseball requires phenomenal pitching, pitching is not everything.
A “No-Hitter” is all about the pitching.
A Perfect Game means no hits or walks, no hit batsmen, no fielding errors that allow a player on base, no uncaught third strikes, and no interference.
. . . no “fielding errors.” Every player on the field must make every play hit to them.
A Perfect Game is what baseball is about—teamwork. It’s a team win. Now that’s inspiring!
BTW: The NY Yankee Museum is open to the public, and on game days to ticket holders. For Tour info Click.
Monument Park, located in center field, recognizes legends who have appeared at Yankee Stadium, is free and open to ticket holders on Yankees home game days. Monument Park opens when the park opens and closes 45 minutes before the scheduled start of games.
Who Inspires Me? Opal Lee
A one-year new holiday commemorating Juneteenth, sort for June 19th, an event many outside of Texas didn’t know about before last year. A momentous event we might still not know about—and definitely wouldn’t be celebrating if it were not for the actions of one determined then 94-year-old woman: Opal Lee
Opal Lee walked from Fort Worth Texas to Washington DC— “a little old lady in tennis shoes”—2 1/2 miles at a stretch, to commemorate the 2 1/2 years it took for word of the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people free, to finally reached Texas.
When Opal arrived at the Capitol on September 23, 2020, she delivered to Congress a petition to declare Juneteenth a holiday with 1.5 million signatures. Watch a Video About Opal Lee’s Walk here!
“ None of us are free until we’re all free.”
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 that word of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached enslaved Texans—two years and six months after President Abraham Lincoln issued it—making Texas one of the last states to legally abolish slavery. In 1980, thanks to activist Opal Lee and others, Texas declared Juneteenth a statewide holiday.
In 2021, when President Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday, Opal Lee, called “The Grandmother of Juneteenth” was there!
For more about how Juneteenth came to be—and why—read/share Opal’s picture book, The Real Opal Lee
And for more about Opal enjoy Alice Fay Duncan and Keturah A Bobo’s picture book biography, Opal Lee and What it Means to be Free.
Even more: Maya Smart has curated an excellent list of Juneteenth Picture Books!
Happy Happy Juneteenth!
What Inspires Me? #18 Batter UP!
I watched a lot of baseball this weekend, including 5-year-old Jack’s T-Ball and Ben’s 8-10 Little League. Each time those pint-sized players stepped up to the plate—regardless of which team—I willed them a hit.
And as the spindly scowling pitchers went into their windup, I willed them strikes. Baseball is hard work. At one at bat, our pitcher, Jameson had to throw 11 pitches before the batter took a base. Eleven times that batter squared up, eleven times that pitcher wound up, eleven tense trys.
The MLB record for the most pitches at a single at-bat is 21. It was set in 2018 by LA Angels’ pitcher Jaime Barria who used up 21 pitches to finally strike-out San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Belt.
Later, my son Max, who coaches Ben’s team, mentioned during pre-game prep, how pitcher and catcher aside, players might only have a couple of chances to get hands on a ball, so they had to be ready, and they had to make it good. Which got me thinking about all of us…
In 1923, arguably Babe Ruth’s best season—the only season he was named the American League’s MVP—his batting average was .349.
Not only is that the NY Yankees highest single-season batting average it’s also the Yankee’s all-time highest batting average. (The Babe’s MLB career batting average is .342.)
In baseball, the batting average (BA), is defined as the number of hits divided by at bats. Which means that out of ten times at bat, Babe Ruth got a hit less than 3 1/2 times—which means about 7 times he was OUT!
There is only one player in the history of Major League Baseball with a BA of 1000—One Thousand! His name is John Paciorek.
Drafted by the Houston Colts, Paciorek played in the minors until 1963 when he was promoted to the Colt 45’s active roster. In his one and only MLB game—Colt 45’s vs NY Mets—right-fielder Paciorek went to the plate five times. He hit 3 singles, walked twice and scored 4 runs. That day Houston beat the NY Mets with a score of 13-4.
Paciorek aside, the highest all-time single-season Batting Average record was set by Tetelo Vargas, an outfielder on the Negro League’s NY Cubans.
In 1943, at the age of 38, in his final recorded season, Vargas posted a batting average of .471. That means he got a hit almost 1 or of every 2 at bats. But not ever player is a heavy hitter. The MLB’s average Batting Average is about .250.
Which means every time an MLB batter—the best of the best—takes the mounds chances are about 4 to 1 they’ll make an out. But they keep taking that plate. They keep swinging. That’s what inspires me!
So I’ll end with the advice Coach Max gave his players this weekend:
Square up before every pitch.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Want to hit!
What Inspires Me? #17-Humans Who Serve
It’s Memorial Day! We say Happy Memorial Day? Bittersweet really. Originally known as “Decoration Day” a Springtime memorial ritual begun after the Civil War, Memorial Day was declared an official holiday in 1971, a day to honor humans who died while serving in the U.S. military.
For many of us, Memorial Day weekend is a joyful time heralding the beginning of summer fun, corn on the cob and potato salad, graduations, celebrations—and maybe that’s as it should be. For when we think our loved ones who served, isn’t that why they served? Why they sacrificed themselves, their liberty, their double scoop—to “ensure the blessing of liberty” for all of us. Humans for humanity.
Humans as in veterans who served in the military. And those who are serving now. Those humans who put their lives on hold to protect and defend our way of life. No matter what we (or they) may think about the politics of where and what battles they may be call into, they serve.
Today, while celebrating Memorial Day, I thought you might like to meet some veterans and learn their stories, collected by Brandon Stanton for his blog Humans of New York.
I first heard about Brandon Stanton and Humans of New York, listening to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! He was a guest of the quiz. Fascinated by his project—which has become quite a lucrative career—I dug deeper. Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.
Brandon’s “initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street and create an exhaustive catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.” Somewhere along the way, Brandan wrote, “I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I'd include quotes and short stories from their lives.”
For the series “Invisible Wounds” Brandon interviewed veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
