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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Fueling the Fire

The joke on Twitter is that if you don’t post it on Facebook, it didn’t happen. So many people record everything they do or read on Facebook. Mother’s Day is no exception. While it is a sweet sentiment to post your mother’s photo, wishing a mother a happy Mother’s Day on Facebook seems hardly personal to me. Instead it seems like just one more “LOOK AT ME!” moment that we have so much of in this day and age. I probably used to be that way, sometimes for fun, or out of boredom. But if Ceil is not on Facebook, why would I wish her a happy Mother’s Day there? Just to show off. Some mothers even use the occasion to brag about their kids.

Facebook is a great place to keep up with what’s going on in the lives of friends, though some take things to an extreme. Do you really need to post eighty pictures of one couple going off to prom? I joked that I was going to post 1,000 prom pictures. It’s another matter to post school trip photos for the parents who didn’t get to go. It was interesting that while few people react to the jokes I post, over sixty friends liked the family photo that Anna posted. But even that won’t change me. I love my family, but I’m not going to overtly and constantly brag about them. Some people do hit a happy medium, like Claire. So many people are interested about how her family is doing, and it’s great that she posts updates and pictures of what’s going on. But she never posts dozens and dozens of pictures of one event.     

You can learn all sorts of things on Facebook. How people you know think politically, religiously, and socially. Unlike at work or Thanksgiving dinner, people talk about anything and everything on Facebook. Some stuff is quite surprising – things I wouldn’t have imagined. But we all have our secrets and bad things that happen to us. Some people don’t mind sharing them. One classmate is deep into spirituality and mysticism.

Social media is also a good place to determine what others think about the hot topics of the day. It really has opened my eyes to all the hate people have in this world - particularly hate for Christianity. The AJC and the local news channels fuel the fire, posting articles and welcoming comments on the juiciest of subjects. They know any news story about Chickfila will bring out the Dan Cathy haters. So many posters blindly accept the theories, suppositions, and unfounded claims of evolutionists about what happened “sixty million years ago” while refusing to listen to the more plausible (and scientifically proven) findings of creationists. People think they are smarter and superior to those who don’t hold the same views they do. Gone are the days of humility, acceptance, and listening. Now if you don’t agree with me you are wrong and should be fired from your job.

Facebook and Twitter give the uneducated a platform to create unrest, be it Chickfila or the Atlanta Braves. A guy who had complained about the Braves recent losing streak posted yesterday that the Braves had swept "only" the lowly Cubs, as if it was no big achievement. I didn’t bother to tell him that all 162 games are in fact equal. At the end of the season a win against the last-place Cubs counts the same as a win against the first place Dodgers or Cardinals. And just because your rival beats you in April or May, it doesn’t mean they’ll automatically beat you in September or October. Too many fans think about baseball with a football mentality. In college football one loss can take you out of the championship picture. In baseball every team loses at least 60 games - ten a month. The season is a marathon, not a sprint. Every team has winning streaks and losing streaks. Panic and it can severely damage your team.      

It is a shame a pitcher can pitch his heart out for eight innings then not get the win because a reliever blows the save. As traditional as baseball is, it’s doubtful they’ll change the rule. Yet if the starting pitcher does not go four innings, the official scorer can choose who he thinks the winning pitcher can be. It can be any pitcher except the starter. That rule should be in effect at all times – the official scorer should be able to determine who the winning pitcher is in every game. It was fitting that Alex Wood got the win Friday night, after pitching so well several times earlier in the season and having nothing to show for it.

In the age where every team employs so many relief pitchers (a strategy that gained popularity in part thanks to Tony LaRussa) it makes the 300 win mark all the more significant. To win 355 games, as Greg Maddux did, is an achievement worthy of ranking him among the greatest pitchers in history (he ranks 8th all-time).

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