As you should know, i am a San Diego Padre fan. And many of you know i have previously railed against the gross overspending on sports when 1) that excess of money spent by owners to inflate the value of their teams and their players could be much better spent on worthwhile causes that really meant something, and 2) the big money has changed professional, college, and even high school sports, impacting the way the games are played all the way down to pre-schoolers: they are no longer pure sports; they are entertainment businesses.

The Padres have gone the way of the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Cowboys, and in fact, every NFL team. Money is no object. Using my shaky math, the Padres have contracts with players amounting to $748 Million (spread over ten years considering the longest term contract) and have a payroll this year of (very) roughly $154 Million.

i really don’t think the players, the owners, the sports networks, the advertisers, the whole shooting match needs that much except for their egos — i would have been and still would be delirious if someone paid me $500,000 per year, the minimum salary for a major league ballplayer…and that would be for one year.

i have rooted for the Padre players as individuals since i moved to San Diego in 1975. i have rooted for the team as well, but it was the players i studied. It was deflating when they didn’t do well, and even worse when they left or were traded away. Losing several players like Hunter Renfroe and Austin Hedges were downers for me. i really liked them. i recognized such loyalty was not good for winning baseball. i understood, but i didn’t like it.

And here we are. i’m now just a fan. i don’t think it’s because i live in the Southwest corner. i shared season tickets with my good friend, Jim Hileman, for about a dozen years, and hung on for another three years until the prices drove me to watching on television. i turned Maureen into a fan. Watching the Friars is our nightly entertainment during the season. i’ve tried to remain the objectivity of a sports journalist, something on my resumé, throughout this crazy, upside down season due to the pandemic. But now, i have tossed out my concerns about the imbalance, the ruination of pure sports, and objectivity.

Here’s why. This year’s edition of the San Diego Padres captured me early on…or at least as early on as the greatly delayed, extremely reduced season of COVID-19 would allow. Not because of their talent, or the rather impressive potential of that talent. i am a big fan of this team because they are fun. They have fun. Jurickson Profar is my favorite on the team, not because of his impressive over achievement from his previous statistics, not because he has often provided offensive spark at the bottom of the lineup, not because he has become a better than average outfielder when he has been a second basemen for most of his career, not because he has played second and all three outfield positions.

Nope, he’s my favorite because he is always smiling. The game is obviously fun for him, He makes it fun for me when i see his smile.

Jake Croneworth is right up there also. If you haven’t noticed him, he’s the kid really and looks even younger, like a curly-haired kid about the age of my grandson Sam at thirteen. He had a slump in September but has been playing like an old pro, enough to be considered for rookie of the year. He’s the kid who hit the home run last night, putting icing on the cake of an incredible comeback playoff winning series.

Now, they play the Dodgers, of all teams. The bums whine, play by unwritten rules, are sore losers — their fans are even worse, perhaps worse than the Yankee, Red Sox, and Cubs fans (and something i fear will become of Padre fans if they win the whole thing). LA makes the Padre salary output look like chicken feed. And they are good, very, very good. And their starting pitching, one of the best in baseball, is healthy.

The Padres don’t have a chance. But then, i didn’t think they had a chance when they meekly conceded the first game to another nemesis, the Cardinals, four days ago. So i’ll be watching. Did i mention they play the game the way it was meant to be played when they are not hitting it out of the park. They call it “small ball,” walking, bunting, stealing bases, hit and run, singles to the opposite field, great defense.

It’s fun. Don’t watch them too much. You might become a fan. Because it’s a fun game.

He is 106 today.

He remains my rock.

Two things i wrote about him. One was written twenty years ago. The second was written eleven years ago posted and recited here in earlier posts.

i miss him.

An Incredible Man

There is an incredible man in Lebanon. He was born September 28, 1914.

The first record of his family in America dates to 1677. His great, great, great grandfather came over the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky with Daniel Boone and apparently was Daniel’s brother-in-law. His great, great grandfather moved to Statesville in southeastern Wilson County in the early 1800’s.

He had three brothers and three sisters. He is the only one left.

He has lived through two world wars, fighting as a Seabee in the southern Philippines in the last one. He has lived through the depression, the cold war, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War.

He had to quit his senior year at Lebanon High School to go to work when his father contracted tuberculosis. He started as a mechanic, shared a business with his brother-in-law in the 1950’s, and then became a partner in an automobile dealership and a gas and oil distributorship. He retired in 1972.

He and his wife have been married for 62 years. They remain infatuated with each other. The first home they owned was a one-room house, adjacent to his wife’s family farm on Hunter’s Point Pike. They bought their next home on Castle Heights Avenue in 1941 with the help of a $500.00 loan from a friend. They have lived there ever since.

He and his wife put three children through college. They have five grandchildren. They have visited every state in the Union, except Alaska, where they were headed in 1984 when his wife’s illness forced them to turn around in British Columbia. Nearly all of their travel has been by RV’s, most in a twenty-eight foot fifth-wheel. When he was 84 and his wife was 80, they made their last cross-country trip to San Diego where they spent winters since 1985 with their eldest son and his family. They have made several trips up and down the east coast since then, and the fifth-wheel is still ready to go in their backyard.

They live comfortably in their retirement. Most people guess his age as early 70’s. Last month, he painted their master bedroom and sanded and painted the roof of his two-car carport. When he can’t find anyone to go fishing with him, he hooks up the boat trailer and goes by himself. Now he usually throws his catch back in. When he used to bring the catch home, he would clean the fish and give them away. He doesn’t like to eat fish, just catch them.

For years, he had the reputation as the best mechanic in Wilson County. He can still fix anything except computers and new cars because he has shunned learning the electronic advances.

All of this isn’t why this man is incredible.

He is incredible because he is such a good man.

He is a willow. He bends with the winds of change and the changes of “progress.” Yet he never breaks. His principles remain as solid as a rock. He is extremely intelligent but humble.

He seems to always be around when someone needs help. Everyone considers him a friend and he reciprocates.

He is not rich, financially. But he is one of the richest men around.

My generation’s fathers were family men. They lived through hard times and hard work without a whimper. They believed in giving a day’s work for a day’s pay. They kept their sense of humor. Their sons wish they could emulate them.

Jimmy Jewell, or James Rye Jewell, Sr., this remarkable man, remains my best friend. I am his oldest son. I have worshipped him since the first recallable thoughts came into my head fifty-three or so years ago. I still find myself wishing I could have his strength, his kindness, his work ethic, his love, his faith.

My father and I have had enough talks for him to know how I feel. But I’ve seen too many people wait until someone was gone before singing their praises publicly. I figure he’s got a good chance to outlive us all, but I wanted to acknowledge how much he means to me and how great a man I think he is.

Happy eighty-sixth birthday, Dad.

Every once in while, actually quite frequently, Sean Dietrich in his blog “Sean of the South” touches a chord within me. Similar experiences in the South, i guess, although the time difference is about a half a century.

Today, he knocked it out of the park when it comes to chord touching.

You see, “In the Garden” is close to being my favorite gospel hymn, and would be unequivocally if there weren’t so many i love.

i keep trying to play several of them from “Christian Service Songs,” that belonged to my sister but i ended up with — Did she give it to me? Probably. Martha is very good to me. And why did i call it the “Cokesbury Methodist Hymnal? Was that the big Sunday morning version with the more formal hymns? Oh man, i have forgotten so much — And i try to play those songs on the piano even though i cannot pick out the left hand accompaniment to the right hand tune very well, if at all. But i keep coming back to “In the Garden” primarily because i love to sing along it with my futile picking — and to think i once (at 14) played in a recital in that beautiful concert hall at George Peabody College (and did fairly well, i might add, with a Bach piece, which, of course, i’ve forgotten, much less how to play it) thanks to Mrs. Gwaltney, who touched the lives of so many of us aspiring Lebanon musicians, one of which gave it all up for football, basketball, and baseball.

And Sean was playing and singing it with his band in an empty concert hall this time. i was singing it in our front room Maureen calls her work room and i call her fun room i should stay out of. i suspect Sean and i know i are taken back to church sings.

My walk back into yore was into that old second edition of the Methodist church on East Main Street , not counting Pickett Chapel, the original first Methodist church but i doubt if they called it that and the balcony shamefully was for the slaves and the white folks gave the building to the former slaves — Oh Lord, i hope not, although i’m pretty sure it was to have separate churches of the same denomination for folks with different skin tones. But this second edition with Bible scenes in the two huge stained glass windows and the three sections of sanctuary seating and the balcony, not for other skin tones like the Capitol Theater on the other side of the square but for Castle Heights’ Sunday morning marching cadets. But that balcony was pretty much empty on Sunday evenings when the cadets were in CQ studying and the men’s choir sang and the sermon was short and the service was mostly gospel songs with everyone singing at the top of their voices and even if a bit off-key, could nail “In the Garden.” i would watch my father in the men’s choir singing his heart out while Mother sort of squeaked, and Martha, Joe, and i baroomed out the words.

Gotta tell you, it made me feel good, warm inside. Wish i could go there one more time.

“In the Garden.”

https://seandietrich.com/i-come-to-the-garden-alone/

Thanks, Sean.