Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Simple Answers to Difficult Problems

Cal Ripken appeared at a fundraiser for Virginia Tech baseball last night:

The inaugural "Baseball Night in Blacksburg" featured a longtime baseball hero from Baltimore. Hall of Famer and Orioles legend Cal Ripken, Jr. was the keynote speaker at Monday evening's fundraising banquet for the Virginia Tech baseball team. The event was held at the west side stadium club of Lane Stadium . . .

. . . The public dinner commenced with Ripken addressing the crowd in attendance. He spoke about his eight elements of perserverance and shared some memories of his late father, Cal Sr., who spent 37 years in professional baseball.

Those "eight elements" refer to the self-help book Ripken released last year. I had missed it at the time. Maybe I've been removed from the I'm-OK-you're-OK mailing list. Must investigate.

But what a fortunate coincidence that the factors which lead to human happiness -- which Ripken surely had identified long before he decided to write a book about them -- just so happened to match his uniform number. I mean, what are the frickin' odds?

I'm not going to read it though. I'd rather wait for the Mitch Williams book. Wild Thing's path to enlightenment may be more lengthy and complicated, but so is life, so I'm sure it will be a much more fulfilling program.

No comments: