Remembering The Death Of A Dear Friend

 

The Sunshine Boys, Spring Training 1989 - Robert Brustad (right) along with this author
and the late Commissioner of Major League Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti

By Harry Cummins

     A few years ago I lost a close friend to metastatic cancer.

     Dr. Robert Brustad, age 69, left behind a wife,Vone, and a teenage son "JJ".  Not incidentally, Bob also left behind the game of baseball.

     Baseball ultimately couldn't save my friend from an end that awaits us all, but it became a comforting companion to his well-spent life and especially to his final agonizing year of chemotherapy. Our final conversations would always leave space at the end for the saving grace and hopeful expectancy of another baseball season, another season in the sun to share. We both knew we were talking about far more than a game.

     Baseball may not be a road to God, but it can become a clear pathway to a deeply shared, collective love between persons.  One of the things that lets us know we are never traveling alone. 

     This, then, is the supreme message my friend's life left behind. The sacrificial hit that transcends seasons and sends us all "home."

     Love one another!

hcummins@aol.com

     

     

Happy Mother's Day To All!

 

An Adolescent's Affecting Story Recalled

 

"When I think about it now, it wasn't too bad, after all.

Worst things happened in 1958. In actual fact, I am a specialist when it comes to feeling compassion. I still can't forget that terrible story about Laika, the poor Eskimo dog in Sputnik 2, who was so brave while there was still some food left inside the rocket.

But what happened after that? Did she starve to death?

Just think of that!!

From My Life As A Dog

Remembering the Distinctive Voice of Paul Auster

 

From New York Trilogy-1985

"Every life is inexplicable, I keep telling myself.

No matter how many facts are told, no matter how many details are given, the essential thing resists telling.

To say that so and so was born here and went there, that he did this and did that, that he married this woman and had these children, that he lived, that he died, that he left behind these books or this battle or that bridge .... none of that tells us very much."

Paul Auster [1947-2024] 

Reflections From The Shoreline - Bird Rock 1950

 

By Harry Cummins

     When I was 7 years old, I lived with my mother in blissful Bird Rock By-the Sea.

     My life then, the part I now choose to remember, consisted of collecting ladybugs in aerated canning jars filled with blades of grass. In the afternoons my mother and I would walk the short, steep hill cascading to the sea where she would sun herself on a smooth rock, her watchful eyes always fixed on me near the shoreline.

     In the 73 years that have passed, my mother has died. Our clapboard beach cottage was sacrificed long ago to Southern California sprawl. I, in the name of becoming settled, have wandered from one address to another.

     Reflecting on all this, from shores many times washed over, I can still trace where prevailing stability first began. Glancing back up the beach at my mother, my anchor, daydreaming on her rock, I could safely sense the rush of a wider world lapping at my tiny feet.

     In those moments, then and now, life was simply everything I saw and imagined. I guessed the same was true for my mother there on her rock of refuge.

     Bird Rock, it turned out, was a moveable fortress.

A Brief Dissertation On The Nature Of Decline

 

                                        

By Harry Cummins

         

      "So we do not lose heart; though our outer self is wasting away"    - 2 Corinthians 4:16

      "Behold, I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it"?  -Isaiah 43:19

     My recent go-round with modern medicine has sent my mind spinning on the health of our world these days, not to mention my own well-being. What does it mean when a once-sturdy life or society suffers a measured collapse with advancing age?  Is individual illness merely a reflection of the wider unraveling proliferating in our collective culture?

      Bereft of answers to these grandiose questions, some considerations still remain.

     Not every illness we confront, personal or societal, abates or reverses itself. Therefore, we need a new set of observations to challenge our thinking about healing and what constitutes true restoration.  In this process we need each other's unique voices of experience. We need to hear them for their remarkable ability to balance self with reality, hope with acceptance, fear with affirmation. We need to hear them, especially, for their ability to establish a concomitant connection with one another.

     To reconstitute ourselves, as individuals and as a society, in the midst of illness and attack, is to help one another make the attempt to go on...is to bear our histories and infirmities with the highest of human credentials.

     Our old stories are ripe for retelling... but in transformative new ways.  We need words with the capacity to turn memories into steadfast hope in the midst of repeated, cumulative loss.  

    Given the urgency of our age, I might suggest this should be an overriding agenda as antidote to our collective affliction.

     

The 'Politics of Movement' 2024

 

  

By Harry Cummins

Nearly 40 years ago, working on a profile for Boxing Scene magazine, I sat down with the celebrated prize fighter Archie Moore in his hotel suite and asked the knockout king of all-time to peer into his crystal ball and fortell the future of the human race.

 His brief response remains one of the more prophetic utterances I have ever heard, reanimated and remembered daily after all these years.

When asked in 1986 what he viewed as the most pressing problem worldwide he responded: " I am very concerned with the plight of the homeless," replied the former Light Heavyweight Champion of the world.  

"Right now I'm working with HUD to find suitable low cost housing for the disadvantaged. Thru poverty and wars, the world has evolved into what I describe as the politics of movement. It is a problem that I fear won't go away soon."

Archie Moore died 12 years later in 1998 at the age of 84.

We all remain on this world's Jericho Road... reminded of Archie's unabated divination while still deciding who is our neighbor. 

Final Stop On Road to 5,000

 

     Washington Huskies QB Michael Penix Jr needs 352 passing yards tonight in the much anticipated National Championship matchup vs. Michigan to reach the rare milestone of 5,000 passing yards in a single season.

     Will he get it?

     Over or under?

     

New Year, New Car, New Contributions

After barely contributing in 2023 (I don't think I did), I thought I'd let you know what's going on with me. 

I'm still living in Eugene, married to my sweet wife for almost eight years and together for close to 23 years, still with locally-owned and operated KKNX, Eugene's ONLY Classic Hits radio station (Beavers and Eugene Challengers American Legion baseball station, too) and KEED, Eugene's ONLY Classic Country radio station and KORE Fox Sports Eugene, Eugene's #1 sports station and the Blazers and Chargers radio affiliates in the area.

I'm still doing freelance radio sports play-by-play and am the Public Address Announcer for my high school alma mater, Churchill High School in Eugene. I’m doing football, volleyball, girls and boys basketball plus some baseball if I'm not at work running a Beavers game.

This summer will mark my ninth season as the Eugene Challengers play-by-play radio voice and will continue my role as the Public Address Announcer at home games unless I'm broadcasting a game. Games can be heard on KKNX in Eugene (FM 105.1/AM 840) and radio84.com. It will be the 14th season of games on KKNX, one of just a handful of radio stations in Oregon that carry local American Legion baseball games (Eugene, Roseburg, The Dalles and Florence). 

Also this summer, it's my 50-year class reunion. I'm planning on attending the Churchill class reunion and the Class of 1974 reunion for Crater High School in Central Point, near Medford. Before moving to Eugene originally in 1970, I attended Central Point schools from the first through eighth grade and stay in touch with many of the people I grew up with, some since the first grade back in 1962. Basically, it's anybody and everybody I grew up with. It's going to be a fun summer. 

On the subject of people NOT using turn signals while driving, my wife and I drove to Roseburg to eat at the closest In 'n' Out restaurant to Eugene in our new car, a 2024 Volkswagen Tiguan that we've had since Friday (yep, two days). Our previous car, an '18 Hyundai Tucson, decided not to be as dependable as it used to be. Anyway, it must be an epidemic that A) people need to learn to use those turn signals. There is a law that says you have to use those when turning right or left. B) Please quit leaving car-length gaps behind cars when you're waiting at a stop sign, traffic signal or at your favorite coffee stand. I've never been able to figure out why people do this nowadays. C) The speed limit on most Oregon freeways is 65 mph. Some locations it's 60 and on some other sections it's 55. Quit going 85 in a 65 mph zone. There are reasons speed limits are established, mostly for safety reasons. 

I welcome your comments also. I don't go off on rants very often so please excuse me if I came off as complaining. I'm a pretty friendly person who really wants to stay that way. 

Thanks for your friendship. I'll do my best to contribute more in 2024. Have a great week. Happy New Year!

 By Gregory Crawford, Founder of Craw's Corner

CLIMATE CHANGE: I personally am in no way the Denier of climate change. However after living in the Portland, Oregon area for 8 decades, I can verify and sustain the fact, out summers might be a little warmer, but our winters at least in the past 50 years, along with fall and spring have pretty much remained the same.

While each season might be a little different over time, the consistency remains the same. Does this tell us anything scientifically, I will let others tell us and weigh in.

OVERTIME---Speaking of overtime, I do like the idea that the icon Jon Spoelstra talks about when it comes to basketball overtimes. If not the first overtime, the second if needed for sure, (first team to 5 points wins.) Benefits of this change, much more exciting, defense really comes into play and if you really study overtimes, they are poorly played and at times very poorly officiated. Shorten them and you have a better product.

TURN SIGNALS---I would like two introduce you all to  a new concept in driving cars, Turn Signals. If you turn right, push upward, if you turn left push downward. I know this is new to most of you, but like everything else, go out in the driveway and practice. 

INVENTIONS----- What is the greatest invention in the last 200 years? Love to hear your answers and thank you for reading,

So Long Dr. Smooth

 

By Harry Cummins

     After 15 seasons and 1,445 games, sweet swinging Michael Brantley has decided to call it quits this week.

     Playing for Cleveland and Houston, Brantley was a 5 time All Star and a Silver Slugger Award winner in 2014.  With 1,656 hits he ended his career with a .298 batting average. Rare air.

     Brantley probably will never make it to Cooperstown, but his picture book swing will endure in the minds of his many fans.  His quiet manner stamped him as one of baseball's most respected players. 

    His coveted power-speed combo likely anchored many a fantasy baseball teams lineup as well. 

    Including mine. 

The Defense Rests!!

 

By Harry Cummins

As evidence, here are just a few NBA winning team point totals from the last 3 days:

Pacers   142

Cavs      140

Hawks   141

Pacers    150

Mavs      139

Jazz        154 OT

A Hall of Fame Half Inning

 

For one day in 1961..the greatest outfield baseball has ever seen!

By Harry Cummins

     Among the substantial number of baseball memories I have stashed away over a lifetime, seen either from wooden grandstands or perched in a press box, a brief 4-batter half inning played 63 years ago still lingers at the top of the list.

     It was the summer of '61 and baseball fans had not yet realized that Babe Ruth's season homerun record would fall later that season and Billy Crystal would one day make a movie about it.  The American League, with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the lineup, met the National League in the 1961 All-Star Game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

     In the top of the 10th, the American League took a 4-3 lead and sent famed knuckleball artist Hoyt Wilhelm to the mound to face a gauntlet of the game's greatest hitters.  Hank Aaron led off the inning with a single, went to second on a passed ball and rode home on a Willie Mays' double to tie the game. Wilhelm then plunked Frank Robinson, putting runners on first and second.  Roberto Clemente then won the game for the National League with a line drive opposite field hit.

     As with most All-Star Games, this one wasn't about the score. There they were. Four immortal names who found themselves hitting in a brief but glorious Murderers' row.  Incredibly, Mantle, Mays and Clemente found themselves positioned in the same outfield during one point on this magical afternoon.

     A Midsummer dreamscape for youthful eyes... still undimmed.

     

      

     

Big News for Craw's Corner This Week

 By Gregory Crawford, Founder of Craw's Corner

After a long absence, way too long, Craw's Corner will be back this week, with lots of new

things included and plenty of good reading. You will enjoy. So get ready.