Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year, More Years

 
            So, if it’s a new year, why do I feel so old?  Michele and I barely made it to midnight this morning.  I probably woke up the same time my daughter was falling asleep.  Ah, to be young again.

            I’ve reached that point in life where I need to guard against the tendency to break out in spontaneous lectures that begin with, “Why, you whippersnappers.  Back when I was your age….”  Really, who cares?  But….

            Among the things I miss in this digital age of ours are The Sporting News, The Baseball Register and The Baseball Encyclopedia.  I first stumbled upon the Sporting News going to visit a friend who was working behind the counter at Glendale Drugs on 52nd and Kedzie on the Great Southwest Side (Why, you suburban whippersnappers….).  Statistics from every league, oh my.  Now, I have to go to mlb.com or a league website, and it just isn’t the same.  To switch from the American Association to the International League was a lot easier when you just had to turn the page.

            The same goes for the Register and the Encyclopedia.  Maybe I was a master flipper of pages, a skill that no longer seems much in demand these days.  But I can’t warm up to baseballreference.com—there’s no going back and forth to compare players.  Wait, I need to figure out how to do split screens.  For three players?  As I said, I was a master flipper of pages.  And now I argue with my wife, who has committed the treasonous act of buying a Kindle to read new books.

            Happy New Year’s, whippersnappers.

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