What The Knuckler? Pitching for Dummies… and Brian Doyle
Sports: Baseball
When everything about baseball is new, having a knowledgeable buddy to help you get a grip on balls, strikes and four-seam fastballs can be more fun than shagging a can of corn
(The following is part of a continuing correspondence between Charley Gordon, journalist and veteran baseball fan, and Brian Doyle, author of Young Adult fiction and newly minted follower of the boys of summer.)
May 3, 2016
Dear Dr. Gordon:
I have a friend who has been a baseball fan for 70 years.
I am, as you know, a neophyte baseball watcher.
My friend (let's call him "Mike") has a superior attitude and is sneeringly patronizing when it comes to baseball comments.
I fear, when I come out of the closet, he is going to dismiss and even scoff at any observation I might make about the game.
I want to say something about knuckle ball pitchers in general and R.A. Dickey in particular. I want my comment to sound sensible and mature and reasonable and I want it to ...
The Day the Unions died – almost
Labour History: Social Credit's lasting debit
What happens when an economically strapped general public elect a right-wing proponent of 'restraint'? Human rights, employment standards and social services get steamrolled by arrogance masquerading as fiscal austerity
By Rod Mickleburgh
Thirty-three years ago, the newly-relected Social Credit government of Bill Bennett brought down the most dramatic, yay outlandish, budget and “restraint” package in B.C. history. What happened next is detailed here in an essay I wrote a year or so ago.
On July 7, 1983, Bill Bennett and his Social Credit government, freshly elected to a third successive term in office, unleashed a revolution in British Columbia. This was a revolution from the right. Fueled by the radical conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Milton Friedman’s economic neo-liberalism, the Socreds took aim at all those elements in society they had never liked. With no advance notice, a total of 26 repressive ...
