Opie led all TOTS' at the plate, on the mound in August

Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)

60-an-over baseball

Not this Opie...

Some call him "The Big O, others on the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) refer to him has Opie, but his real name is Joe Opocensky.

He's certainly not an Opie Taylor look a like and it has never been documented that the actor-director Ron Howard, now 68, ever played baseball, amateur or professionally.

But as for Opocensky, 72, he certainly can play the game as he led the TOTS during the month of August in hitting and pitching.  

This Opie...

Opocensky stepped to the plate 38 times and banged out 19 hits during the month for a blistering .576 average. He scored eight runs and was second on the club in RBI with 12. On the mound, he posted a 4-1 record to lead all TOTS' pitchers. Opie, aka Joe O, hurled 33 innings, struck out six and walked eight.

Reed Palmer, 66, who hit his 100th career home run for the organization in August, won the RBI battle with 13.

Other top hitters for the month included Bob Daliege (18 for 36, a .500 average) and Mike Dawson (18 for  27, a healthy .667 average). Palmer finished the month 12 for 27, a .444 average. Also with a dozen hits for the month: Mark Rupert (12 for 33), Ron Ryan (12 for 19) and Ken Nebesny (12 for 26).

As a club, the TOTS collected 240 hits in 594 total at bats -- a .404 batting average. Ten pitchers toed the rubber in August and 36 players took their cuts and played the field.

Way to go, TOTS!

Congratulations to the Honolulu, Hawaii Little League team on capturing the 2022 LLWS Title

Hawaii wins it all...

Congrats to Hawaii on winning the 2022 Little League World Series title with a 13-3 win over Curacao today in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Hawaii outscored their opponents 60-5 at this year's series to capture their state's fourth LLWS title. 

Records are meant to be broken...

A little track and field and some baseball, too.

The sports world we live in...

I'm no longer skeptical about anything that's related to the world of sports. Records are meant to be broken. It's been 25 years since I wrote the article below. Young athletes continue to jump higher and higher, run faster and push the envelope.

Women's prep pole vaulting in 2022...from Athletic.net

Amanda Moll, 11th grade, cleared 14' 9.5, a personal record in Washington State in March, Kenna Stimmel vaulted 14' 6.25, another personal record in Ohio in June for the Virginia Tech commit, Hana Moll, Amanda' sister, vaulted 14' 5.25 at the Oregon Relays in April, Molly Haywood, a junior in high school, cleared 14' 4 in Texas, also in April, and Tessa Mudd, in the 17-18 division in South Carolina, vaulted 14' 3.25 -- all of them personal bests.

Back in 1997, I covered a high school track meet in Phoenix and witnessed first hand the beginning of girls' prep pole vaulting in Arizona.

I was sceptical.

That year, most of the girls were having trouble out-doing the boys in the high jump, who were consistently jumping over six feet...some near the 7-foot mark.

I figured there would come a day when I would be shaking my head at the progress of women's pole vaulting. It has come to pass. In 2003, April Kubishta of Lake Havasu set a state record with a vault of 13 feet, 1 1/4 inch and, in doing so became the first female to clear 13 feet in Arizona. She went on to become a star vaulter at Arizona State University and in 2008 set a personal best of 14-1 indoor and 13-11.75 outdoor. In contrast, Alec Hsu vaulted 16 feet, 1 inch in May of this year as he completed his stellar senior season at Phoenix Desert View High School.

Tolleson's Nick Hysong still owns the boy's state prep record at 17 feet, 4.75 inches. And then there's world record holder Sergey Bubka (Ukraine) who owns a vault into outer space with a remarkable vault of 20 feet, 1 3/4 or 6.14 meters. (I hate that meter thing).USA's Tim Mack vaulted 5.95 meters at the Athens Olympics. But getting back to the girls, Russian Yelena Isinbayeva vaulted 16 feet, 6 inches (5.03 meters) in Rome at a meet in 2008.

Remarkable! Hats off to all vaulters, especially the Arizona female vaulters who got it all started back in 1997.

And let's get back to baseball. You knew I would -- primarily Little League baseball in Williamsport, Pa., where yesterday the homer derby was held. A young man, 12, from Marana, Arizona hit 47 home runs to beat all competition. Jayson Veit (family photo below) cleared the fences time and time again like it was a walk in the park.

Times are changing in the world of sports. I'm lucky I'm still around to witness our youth as they push the envelope. Mind-boggling stuff.

Little Leaguers closing in on "final days" in Williamsport, Pennsylvania at 2022 LLWS

 

My kid's books, Billy's Victory and the sequel, The Return of Johnny Dugan, are still alive and swinging away, available at Amazon Kindle or in paperback form, too -- two quick-read fiction books about young athletes and their passion for baseball.

Plenty of young heroes -- including 11-year-old Billy Ray Reynolds in Billy's Victory and the slightly grown-up teenagers, the McPherson brothers -- Boomer, Bumper, Bugs and Booker T -- in The Return of Johnny Dugan, as they run the bases, hit homers and lead their team to victory.

Of course in real life, it's double-elimination time in Williamsport as the Little Leaguers head for the final weekend of play. The teams to beat include: U.S teams still swinging away at the mid-way point of Week 2 -- Tennessee, Iowa, Texas, a home-grown  Pennsylvania team and a team from Honolulu, Hawaii, while the top international teams still alive and swinging away are  Canada, Mexico, Curacao, Chinese Taipei and Nicaragua,

Good luck to the remaining teams.

The Day of the Yellow Jackets

A pathway to innocence

 As I close in on yet another decade of my life…a decade that has already left me behind. I search not for the latest gadget or a piece of hardware which will make my waning years more bearable…an additional piece of technology that will undoubtedly aid a young person’s journey to a place I’ve already been.

Instead, my mind returns to a path through a gate to an old farm house that was home for an innocent four-year old boy back in 1949 and the soothing sound of a dog named Jack, playfully chasing me over an acre of land…an acre which seemingly had no end.

Instead, it was my entrance to a new world — a world without a smart phone or an Internet system capable of taking me a million miles away in an instant with a push of a thumb.

How did I survive in 1949? How did my grandparents survive? How did they put dinner on the table? How did they order pizza and have it delivered? Of course, they didn’t. The pizza, I mean.

The food came from the garden. The tomatoes were fresh. Of course, there was something called Okra…something that everyone seemed to love to digest…even Jack! But not me.

It was a learning experience from the dinner table, to the grassland outside my bedroom window, to the dirt road that led to the railroad track, to the pond where the crappie lived.

That summer I learned a valuable lesson: Stay clear of yellow jackets.

Jack and I would play with a little red ball. I’m sure I hit every window of the old farm house at one time or another with that bouncing ball…and we would chase the elusive oval…everywhere. One time: into the bushes, near the front porch.

Quick on my feet, back then, I recovered the ball in just seconds only to emerge with two yellow jackets attached to my lips. I didn’t need a dictionary to tell me what I had latched onto.

Nowadays, just google it and you’d find: A wasp. A member of the Vespidae family, a group of insects that have folded wings and pronotums and look like a triangle when you witness the insects from a lateral point of view.

From my point of view at the time: It hurt when stung, as I circled the farm house a hundred times. My grandparents assumed I was playing Cowboys and Indians as I padded my overgrown lips, over and over again.

And indoors I remember…the cold mornings and Grandma’s quilt up to my nose…the handwoven quilt that kept me warm, until the sun came up…and time for me to get up again and explore…and learn…and be free.

No CNN…no ESPN…maybe a newspaper on the porch once a week, its arrival signaled by Jack himself, as we both watched a cloud of dust disappear — an old pickup truck chugging back down the road and back to town.

Of course, I couldn’t read then. But time would go by fast enough. I would learn to read, and write and eventually loose my age of innocence and fast forward to now: to the year 2022.

Robots are coming…coming to make everyone’s life easier. Technology is through the roof and beyond.

A robot may be programed to do a lot of things. But one thing the robot will never do: Live life and be able to recall: The Day of the Yellow Jackets.

If you are not a fan of Albert Pujols, you should be!

Major League Baseball

Albert Pujols

Albert Pujols, 42, is going out in a blaze of glory.

Pujols hit career home run 693 in Chicago yesterday -- the only score in a 1-0 win over the Cubs.

In a St Louis Cardinals uniform for however many games he has left in his career, Pujols is closing in Alex Rodriquez (696) and the 700-club, which includes Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).

It's mind boggling what the young man is doing -- young in my book, since I'm almost twice his age.

Pujols, has 14 home runs this season -- 7 in his last 10 games.

 

A TOTS' story: Conrad Royksund

 The Man from Norway

Conrad played old timers’ baseball with the TOTS (Tucson Old Timers) from 1998-2002, and became their unofficial photographer in 2012, when his multiple eye surgeries kept him from joining them on the field.

Conrad Røyksund, born Conrad Simonson Dec. 5, 1931, died Feb. 1, 2018, in Tucson, Ariz. He was 86 years old. 

After the death of his father in 1984, born Gustav Røyksund in Norway, Conrad took back the family name to honor his Norwegian heritage. He was born into poverty and raised on a small farm near Graham, Wash. The oldest of seven children, he and his brothers slept in a chicken coop from primary school age until he graduated high school.

He was the first member of his family to attend college, paying his way by fishing with his father in Alaska. Conrad then graduated from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and served Christ the King Lutheran Church in Fremont, Calif. for over a decade. He eventually earned a PhD from the University of Chicago and began teaching at Luther College in 1969, retiring in 1998.

Conrad was a philosopher, a poet, a fisherman, a wonderful cook and carpenter. Most of all, he loved writing. He was a coffee shop guy, loved to sit and converse with friends, strangers and undoubtedly listen to their stories as well. Yours truly, the author of Bookemdansports, can certainly relate to that as donuts, coffee shops...and the characters I have meet in such places along the way is now part of my DNA.

Conrad's stepson, Dan Hubburd, said: "I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful."

That's exactly how his TOTS' teammates remember him from 1998 as a player and through his days as the organization's top photographer until the latter part of 2017.

Conrad's loving wife, Mari, his partner in life for 35 years, still resides in Tucson.

Another TOTS' story that will remain in the archive books for years to come. Conrad, a TOT for life -- one of the best of the best.

The morning paper...why do I miss it so?

From the desk of Dan Price...

No morning paper in my driveway
 

It’s probably a senior citizen thing. After all that’s the world this old-timer lives in these days. There’s no morning paper at the door...or if us seniors are still lucky enough to have a driveway…well the driveway is void of such an item.

This old-timer is on social security and the daily paper is printed elsewhere and trucked to my town many, many hours after what used to be considered a normal deadline for newsworthy stuff. By the time I find the daily paper, it’ll cost me more than a half a tank of gas…well there I go, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but us seniors are known to do that from time to time.

If you’re an elderly person and still read my ramblings, you’’ll latch on to where I’m going with this…you’ll catch on to the point I’m trying to get across.

Sometimes we…us old people…have to raise our voices and overemphasize a little to get noticed. And…if we happen to find a paper we may wander over to a park bench and take a nap halfway through a story on how to hit the weights, exercise more…or run a 10-miler. Of course, the article is tailored to a 25-year-old and the ad next to the article is on how to get that special energy drink cheap at the closest nutrition store.

It’s hard to find a senior section in the paper these days.

So, if you’re up on the times and spend your waning years on a computer, like me, or you may have a concerned relative who may have purchased a smart phone for you…well then, now you are off and running — after a month’s lessons from a grandson or a granddaughter, that is.

Soon you can discover what happened in the 19th inning of a major league baseball game that ended in the wee hours of the morning, but, more importantly the standings are up to date and if you are a sports nut, then your day will be complete.

My next concern: Does a young person even read anymore? Forget newspapers, where can I find a young person with a book in his or her hand, sipping on a root beer float, engrossed in a story and unable to put the book down? Until, that is, those words finally appear: the end.

Saw a cartoon the other day. A librarian was leaning over her desk, a young redheaded boy with his eyes wide open, was staring at a foreign object.

The librarian said: “Young man, instead of powering it up, you just turn the cover to get started and instead of using you thumb, you actually just use your fingertips and turn the pages.”

Catch the falling leaves...

 It is impossible to change the world overnight, dismantle all the chaos in one giant swoop. We have more questions than answers. Why does an entire classroom of elementary school kids in western Texas lose their lives, along with their precious teachers by a crazed gunman who had no one in his life to lead him away from such total destruction?

We, as a country must change the flow…this path of destruction, that we seem to be heading down. Can we start by looking in the eyes of the young…into an uncluttered mind, and realize it all starts with strong family ties so woven inside the body of a young child, like the boy named Fallon above, who gets joy and wonderment out of an autumn leaf as it slowly blows away in the wind.

The second week of the 2022 Little League World Series begins in just a few days. A Utah team from St George arrived in Williamsport, Pa., last week — the first team ever from that state to reach the series — a series that is celebrating its 75th year.

A young man on the Utah team suffered a fall off the top bunk of his bed at the dormitory complex and hit his head — his young life suddenly in danger. The young man, just hours away from hist first swings at the LLWS, was prepped for surgery. A punctured artery, causing bleeding of the brain, and he would need a piece of his skull removed.

Easton Oliverson, a pitcher and outfielder for Snow Canyon out of the Santa Clara Little League in St George, is recovering, alert and on the road to recovery.

Easton’s teammates will honor him by suiting up and taking the field… and continue to finish what they had started months ago: to reach the LLWS and represent the state of Utah, while fans from all over the world will tune in their television sets the next ten days to watch all 10 teams from the United States and the 10 international teams, give it their all and play for the love of the game.

Life can change in an instant. The young man from Utah is expected to recover and will return to the wonderment of life…return to witness the falling leaves, the snow on the mountaintops and with the support of his family be able to follow his path into adulthood.

The children of Uvalde, Texas will not. So many children lost…senselessly taken from us — from what should be the greatest country in the world.

Can we stop this chaos, please!

Photo: By Amelia Price

60-and-over Tucson Aces fall to Old Pueblo, 6-4

Old Pueblo 6  Tucson Aces  4

Down 6-2 early, Aces battle back, but come up short at Udall Park

Three hits through 6 innings, Aces rally in 7th with 2 runs and 3 hits

Four unearned runs in the first two innings turned out to be too much for the 60-and-over Tucson Aces to overcome this morning at Udall Park. Down 6-2 in the third inning, the Aces put a stop to the Old Pueblo shenanigans and shut them down the rest of the way as three right-handers -- starter Mike Dawson and relievers Ernesto Escala, along with closer Larry "Wild Thing" Abramson put the clamps on the visitors from the south side. 

Dawson and Ron Ryan singled in the bottom of the seventh and Randy Livingston drilled a two-run double to left-center to close the gap, but with two out, Thunder Tim Tolson hit a towering fly ball to first base for the final out of the game and a 6-4 win for Old Pueblo.

Helping out behind the plate today was umpire Kirk Helms, who is town and visiting his home-run hitting college buddy from old, the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers current career home run leader Reed Palmer.

Palmer also plays for the Aces and bats clean up and normally belts the ball off the fence or over the fence for the Aces, too. But no homers today, instead Palmer set up shop behind the plate as a catcher. He stands 6-6 and his buddy from Lincoln, Nebraska is 6-4.

Certainly a couple human specimens on the ball field today at Udall at the same time.

See photos below: Palmer with the catching gear on and Helms with the umpire gear.

Despite the loss today, the Aces took it in stride -- a rare loss considering the Aces have had Old Pueblo's number in the past. But not today as Rudy Duarte picked up the win on the mound for the south-side club.

The Aces will rejoin the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers tomorrow morning at Udall to close out the weekend. Game time is set for 8:30.

Below is a few more photos from today's 6-4 loss to Old Pueblo.

Where is this country going?

 

As I said in a previous post, there's a storm brewing in our city and it has nothing to do with the summer monsoons.

This can't be the natural progression of things in our city...in our country.

One more rent increase, one more home in town priced to the hilt and soon to become affordable to that one percent that all the TV networks constantly talk about. 

At least I'm assuming they (the media bigs) are still analyzing, documenting such stories on a daily basis, or are they?

I don't watch the news anymore. I'm fibbing. It takes only a glimpse to get the idea where we are heading.

Of course I look and then go about my business doing nothing. I'm part of the problem. Give me a break I'm a sportswriter for goodness sake.  I live in the world of sports where dreams are made of...where someone gets five hundred thousand dollars for fouling off a pitch...and makes millions for one season batting under the Mendoza line. 

Maybe a change isn't coming, so let's pass it on to the powers-to-be in 2024, 2028 and 2032 to decide, or more realistically, not decide. Pretty soon there will be no grocery carts left to use...and that, of course, would only come in to play if there was a normal human being out there who could afford to buy groceries in the first place.

The word is out us seniors may get a big increase in social security in 2023. There's also a rumor floating around that the system will be revamped. Whatever that means! I guess I may have to watch the news from time to time and see how all this plays out.

But for now, I need to find a television and see if Aaron Judge can reach 62 home runs this season.

Now how much is that a pitch again? I forget. Of course, I'm an old-timer and being forgetful is understandable. Which, in some circles they say is the problem.

Time to root for Snow Canyon

The 75th Little League World Series

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

August 17-28, 2022

As I said previously, I’ll root for the Snow Canyon team (photo below) from the Santa Clara Little League in St George, Utah — some 400 miles north of Phoenix — as they have qualified for the 2022 Little League World Series, the first team from Utah to accomplish such a feat. Santa Clara plays its first game on Friday in Williamsport.

Your truly, author of two middle reader books, Billy's Victory and The Return of Johnny Dugan -- both fiction yarns about baseball, will watch along with baseball fans from all over the world as the 75th Little League World Series gets underway with first round games on Wednesday in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Of course, this is the real thing, folks! Good luck to all -- the 10 teams from the United States and the 10 international teams.

Santa Clara will represent the Mountain Region in Williamsport and will get a first-round bye.

TOTS' Palmer hits career homer No. 100

Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)

60-and-over baseball

Reed Palmer, 66, hit his sixth home run of the season and career home run No. 100 today at Udall Park for the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers.

Palmer's team lost 8-7 today, but the big story was the big lefty's blast in the third inning when he took Team White's right hander Brad Vermeer, 71, deep and into the trees way beyond the right field fence.

"I really didn't feel like I hit it (the ball) well," Palmer said, after the game today.

But Vermeer and his Team White teammates can attest to the fact that Palmer got it all as the players all turned their heads and watched the oval sail over the fence -- some 330 feet away.

The record-setting blast is a club record for individual career homers for the organization and it's been a few weeks since Palmer hit his 99th career homer. It's been a waiting game, complete with a few intentional walks by the opposing pitchers, until today. Palmer also owns the single-season home run record for the club at 30.

Chances are Palmer will add a few more home runs before the season ends on December 31, when the TOTS complete their 54th season.

Photo: Palmer's partially autographed 100th career home run ball.

Note: See Tucson Old Timers Facebook page for the complete rundown on today's game at Udall by reporter Bob Daliege.   

Revisiting the sliding glass doors

The path of awareness...

 I’m at the age when I’m losing a lot of my friends. All of us will go through it. Each time it happens, I sit back for a moment and recall those times, those flashbacks, if you will, like when I walked down the hallway in high school with that special friend, or later in life, sat in the dugout and had a brief conversation with a teammate, or, more times than not, shuffled through the morning paper and discovered I had lost another friend.

Like most people, I thank my lucky stars that I’m still here, still around to savor those “special moments” with the friends I have left…and my loved ones who are still with us.

Four years ago, I pushed a button and waited patiently for a caregiver to open up a sliding glass door, allowing me to enter the memory care unit of which my mother was a resident. I would always take a deep breath and enter a world where all the patients had a hard time remembering those special moments in their life.

I remember walking the long corridor outside my mother’s room. There were close to forty residents on the first floor of the center and each one of them had a square wooded cabinet hanging on the wall just outside their door. Inside the cabinet, were pictures and keepsakes, noting the resident’s “special moments” in their life. Some of the photos dated back to the 1950s, the 1940s, the 1930s, and in some cases the 1920s.

Every time I prepared to leave the facility, I waited for a caregiver to hustle over and unlock the sliding glass door. I would then walk into the sunlight and look up at the blue sky. I would then take a deep breath and thank my lucky stars that I could escape to the world I lived in…the world away from the sliding glass door.

I lost my mother in April of 2018, and I would never enter through those sliding glass doors again. I would never see her again. I often wonder what window of opportunity is still out there for me and how long will I be able to avoid such sliding glass doors?

At one point, in 2015, my mother lived in the same facility, but on the fourth floor, long before Alzheimer’s had raised its ugly head and not only took away her walks outside the sliding glass door but her beautiful view of the mountains from her balcony.

The move to the first floor was inevitable.

As I close in on another decade of my life, I cherish every view, every walk in the park, and every free moment I have left in this world. The final view outside my window will come soon enough.

But it is time to honor not only my mother but all the beautiful people that have left this world. I learned a lot from inside that sliding glass door.

One of the most important things is to continue to enjoy the view and stay away from the sliding glass doors as long as you can. Look back in time if you must, but for all the right reasons.

Enjoy the moment. The next day is a view worth waiting for.

Billy is back!

 One character of mine that continues to live on...

From the desk of Dan Price

Originally released in December of 2007, Billy's Victory was, and is, about an 11-year-old boy, Billy Ray Reynolds, who dreams of stardom as a professional baseball player. Billy recently had a facelift, so to speak, in August of 2022 and the new and improved Billy's Victory currently sells for 7.99 on Amazon and 2.99 at the Kindle store...and the fiction book is back to regular print, condensed to 173 pages inside a 8 x 11 cover.

Billy is back just in time for the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania -- with 2022 marking the 75th anniversary of the tournament. Of course, not every baseball fan in this great country of ours can be in attendance -- so that's were Billy comes in, especially for boys and and girls, 10-and-up, who are ready to hit the ball field elsewhere...and have "a "catch."

Of course, Billy's Victory is a work of fiction -- every word from your's truly, but the kids heading for Williamsport, August 17-28, are real life little leaguers. The players of 2022 will bounce off that television screen and in to the hearts of all baseball fans that tune in for the games.

Billy Ray Reynolds and his showdown with Boomer McPherson and the Green River Rats is still alive in my head and I have often wondered where Billy is now, some 15 years later. I will never forget the day "Billy" was released and a book review landed in the Arizona Daily Star on the exact day I was recovering from quadruple bypass surgery in a room at the University of Arizona Medical Center.

I've come a long way...and I guess Billy has to. Below the original idea on paper. Today,15 years later, Billy celebrates again...

A staff of one...

 From the desk of Dan Price...

The creek continues to flow...and so do the words.

Maybe it’s been my destination all along.

I’ve spent seven decades talking to a little fella in my head. He must be tiny. How in the heck could he get into such a small space?

At the age of 77, the voice in my head has finally left me alone to fend for myself. I mean, that old brain of mind has been so cluttered over the years, and recently, I have told myself… told myself!!!! Listen to me! I’ve told myself to let it go, let it rip, and let the words flow…all without the little fella steering me in one direction or another.

Suddenly, I’m my own publisher, writer, storyteller, author, and crazy old man — all wrapped into one bundle.

And I don’t have to worry about getting a discount for this bundle. It’s been free all along. Self-publish, self-write, self-edit…well, you name it.

In my case, there’s no money in all those endeavors mentioned above. If you don’t believe me, I can show you some recent royalty checks to clear your mind.

This old man has always flown by the seat of his pants. There was a time, some thirty years ago, when I was a struggling reporter and worked for a newspaper. Every couple of weeks, I’d deposit a check, pay the rent, buy some groceries, fill up the jalopy with gas…and continue to peck away at the typewriter. I think it was a typewriter. I’m not sure; my memory is beginning to fade.

Let’s back up a second. My memory is not fading and is still intact. I have a curse. I remember everything, and suddenly, I want to get it all out and into print.

But I’m a staff of one and chances are I’ll live the rest of my life the same way: as a staff of one.

At this point, I’m not sure I want it any other way. I have just enough social security coming in to pay the bills, and currently, if I drive less than 300 miles a month, then I’m good to go.

I do have to worry about my laptop burning out. I must have passed the word limit for such a device long ago.

Still, it’s not so bad being a staff of one.

No one is around to tell me if I’ve been bad or good. Whoops! Or is it oops? In 1920, it was Whoops! I’m not sure about all that. I’m not that old. I was born in 1945, right when World War II ended.

It’s been a long journey.

So, if the words keep flowing, the journey may be far from over.

Football season is here!

 Arizona Football

Above the improved turf Arizona Stadium.

The 2022 season awaits...opener for the Wildcats -- September 3 at San Diego State.

You can't make this stuff up

 You can't make this stuff up and that's the beauty of it all...

***** ***** *****. ***** *****

Pop Fisher...Billy Ray Reynolds and the real-life Little Leaguers from St George, Utah

Wilford Brimley, who passed away in St George, Utah in 2020 at the age of 85, was the great actor who played the lovable Pop Fisher in The Natural (1984), the manager of a slumping baseball team, until Roy Hobbs appeared and changed all that.

Brimley's buddy, Robert Duval, pushed him into acting and the lovable actor went on to be Pop Fisher in The Natural, but also co-starred in Cocoon (1985),Tender Mercies (1984)...well the list goes on, including a series of commercials for Quaker Oats.

Brimley lived in St George, which just happens to be the home of the current Santa Clara Little League, and the Snow Canyon team that is one win away from Williamsport and the 2022 Little League World Series.

As I said you can't make this stuff up.

Now I did a fiction book in 2007 called Billy's Victory about a 11-year-old boy named Billy Ray Reynolds, who led the Johnsonville Little League to the District finals in a southern Colorado town, some three-hundred miles east of St George.

Of course, in my cluttered brain, it all makes perfect sense: Wilford Brimley, Robert Redford, Robert Duval, Billy Ray and the real-life kids from the Santa Clara Little League.

Santa Clara needs to win on Friday to punch their ticket to Williamsport and, you guessed it, I'll be rooting for the Utah team to go all the way.

Of course, that's all non-fiction and the world will see how things unfold, August 17 through August 28.

As for my little book, Billy's Victory, the book keeps on swinging. It is hard to believe it's been 15 years since the fiction yarn was first in print.

You can find Billy roaming around on Amazon somewhere.

You gotta love baseball, especially this time of year.

Below is the cover and sketch of my December/2007 book, Billy's Victory. Billy wore number 8 and please don't yell at me...he was a Yankee fan.

Photos above: Top - L/R Robert Redford, Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Brimley from The Natural and at the bottom the sketch for the cover of Billy's Victory.

Update: (8/12/22) Utah advances to the Little League World Series in Williamsport with a 7-3 win over Nevada today in San Bernardino, California. Snow Canyon from the Santa Clara Little League in St George, Utah becomes the first team in the state of Utah to qualify for the LLWS.