Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

Dog Days of Summer: How I Lost That Loving Feeling for Baseball

Too many strikes, too much free agency - baseball is dead to me.

I have fallen out of love with baseball.

Yes, the dog days of summer are here. That means basketball, a winter sport indigenous to the U.S., is just starting their championship series. And that hockey, another winter sport, but this one transplanted to frigid regions of the U.S. like Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and LA, just crowned a new champion. But as the seconds tick off on the NBA Series between the Lakers and the Celtics, what it really means is that we’re officially entering the dead period before football season starts.

Some sports purists just sat up a little straighter. Say what? Don’t you know it’s baseball season!

True. Baseball is still America’s pastime, particularly if you live in Boston or NYC and can outspend the rest of the league (combined) in the quest for tactical superiority and garnering every spot on the All Star team. But football is America’s passion. And so for the rest of us, excluding St. Louis fans who support their Cards no matter what, Chicago some years (or for certain proud masochistic Cubs fans, every year), and one Cinderella-story elsewhere in America, we just don’t care. Sure, we’ll watch a game or two before the season is over, but the second game depends on whether women’s bowling or billiards (or some combination of those two sports) is in reruns yet.

Just for context, I didn’t grow up with anything but love for baseball. I was born in Dayton, Ohio, about 45 miles north of Cincinnati, and was there when the Big Red Machine terrorized opposing pitchers. (My rookie year as a 5-year-old fan at old Crosley Field was Pete Rose’s rookie year as a player.) I was in Kansas City for most of the George Brett era and attended a minimum of 20-something games a year.

But something happened. It’s not just that the clubs I like started losing. You expect success to be cyclical in sports, unless you’re a Cubs fan, of course. (Sorry for that second gratuitous shot at the Cubbies in one article.) With the explosion of free agency, I discovered I didn’t know half the guys on “my team” from one season to the next. I could have lived with some rebuilding years with a young exciting roster of “our guys”, but once-proud franchises like the Royals and Reds became development squads for the deep pocketed coastal teams. Throw in a couple of strikes, including one that accomplished something that not even Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany could pull off – shutting down a World Series – and I was gone as a fan. I think forever.

So you’re pretty mad at baseball? You probably think I’m a hater. Nope. The problem is not that I got mad at baseball but that I simply stopped caring a decade ago. And despite publicity gimmicks like the Red Sox winning the World Series and biannual Congressional Steroids hearings, I’ve lost that loving feeling.

It might be Kevin Garnett with a follow up monster jam or Kobe Bryant with an acrobatic mid-air spin move with a reverse lay up that ends the NBA Finals. But whoever does it sometime in the next 10 days or so, all I can say is it’s almost time for football!

A Mother’s Gift


I’ve never been a big Elvis fan. I was a teen in the 70s when Elvis was heavy, wore white jump suits with tassels, and was a Vegas act. He did have a couple hits in the 70s, like Kentucky Rain, which I kind of liked. But then again, Paul Anka and Sammy Davis, Jr. had hits too. (I actually hated Candy Man.)

I received a manuscript a couple weeks ago from a music entertainment author who I represented in my agenting days. He wrote a memoir with Lamar Fike, one of the “Memphis Mafia” members who made up Elvis’s lifelong entourage. Lamar was a fixture in the Presley household long before Elvis became a one-named superstar. He was present at many crucial moments in Elvis’s life, including the death of his mother. I did a sneak peek at the manuscript and the following short passage jumped out at me, though it may be common knowledge to Presley aficionados —

After Gladys died in 1958, I found that Elvis had lost his moral compass, and for that matter Vernon did too. Whatever sense of innocence that the Presley household had while Gladys was alive, was suddenly tossed out the window. Suddenly Vernon was able to break up a married woman’s happy home, and Elvis was free to sexually cavort with a far-from-innocent underage girl named Priscilla Beaulieu.

Our thoughts on Mother’s Day tend to turn sentimental as we remember the sweet things about motherhood. Fike’s words are a nice reminder that one of the greatest blessings a mom can bestow on her children is a moral compass, not always a sweet and easy business. For me, it’s not that I always followed that compass during my teen years and other moments in my life, but growing up with prayer and countless readings through a battered blue edition of Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, I was never able to forget that a compass pointing to matters that mattered was there.

So if there were a few things you didn’t get to do because your mom said no and maybe went so far as to put you on a guilt trip, say thanks anyway, from the bottom of your heart. And whether you’re a mom or dad with kids in the home, even if it’d be more fun to just be popular and let them figure out everything on their own, make sure you give them a compass that they can use when they need to find their way home.

Thanks Mom – that is a mother’s gift I am grateful for.

The Problem With Young People Today!

What’s wrong with America’s youth?

What kind of future can America expect as the “Millennials” enter adulthood and the workforce? (Albeit a couple years later than people of my generation did!) Kind of scary isn’t it what with their self absorption, their demand to be entertained, and their overall cavalier attitude towards morals, traditions, and the things in life that really matter? What’s the problem with young people today?

What’s a society to do? And in my case, what’s a parent to do with four millennials of my own? (I’m not sure what to call my two kids who are still at home.)

I’m glad I’m not the only one keeping a wary and vigilant eye on this troubling demographic in the American landscape.

WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) — Young Americans have a reverence for national institutions, traditions and family values, a U.S. survey indicates. A survey of so-called “millennials” – those between 21 and 29 – revealed the group overwhelmingly said they support monogamy, marriage, the U.S. Constitution and the military, The Washington Times reported.

“We were completely surprised. There has been a faulty portrayal of millennials by the media — television, films, news, blogs, everything. These people are not the self-entitled, coddled slackers they’re made out to be. Misnomers and myths about them are all over the place,” said Ann Mack, who directed the survey and is the official “director of trend-spotting” at J. Walter Thompson, the nation’s largest advertising agency.

In addition to indicating 94 percent of millennials respect monogamy and parenthood and 84 percent revere marriage, the survey found 88 percent said they respect the U.S. Constitution, 84 percent respect the military and more than three-quarters believe in the “American dream.”

There it is. The proof I was looking for. Now I can state unequivocally, without any doubt or hesitation whatsoever, what’s wrong with young adults today. And it starts with that attitude of theirs. Namely, it just might be a whole lot better than that of my generation!