Merry Christmas from Ponder the Thought to you and yours. This seems like a suitable time to bring up the fact that Baby Jesus was not born on December 25th, but I think I’ll keep that to myself. The science is not clear on this issue, so I’ll just stick with December 25th until they sort all that out.
Apparently, Pope Julius threw out December 25th and everyone went with it back in 350 AD. Not sure a Pope is the best source for the birthdate of a baby, but I’m not an expert in religion or babies.
I am a “Merry Christmas” guy basically because I like to offend strangers that are triggered by simple greetings. “Seasons Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” are really the safe pronouns of the holiday season. You do you.
This reminds me that I have never selected a pronoun for myself. My email looks naked without directing recipients on my pronoun choice. Going to make that a goal for 2024.
Royals’ Twitter woke up last week after the front office threw around one hundred million dollars of payroll or so to revamp the roster. I must admit, I got a little excited about the moves they made. Then I remembered that these are the same people who told us that they thought they were fielding a competitive team at the outset of 2023 and then after a month said that it was an “evaluation” year.
I understand off season baseball optimism, but history tells me that this effort to be “competitive” will be an awful failure. It reminds me of the 1991 to 1992 transition. The Royals finished in sixth place in 1991 with a record of 82-80 and they decided to “revamp” the team. They traded Bret Saberhagen and Bill Pecota that year for Kevin McReynolds, Keith Miller and Gregg Jeffries. It was the start of something “new.”
The team went 72-90 in 1992. Luckily, I have only stewed over that for 31 years, I’m fine.
Some poor dude or dudette working in the Royals public relations office is grinding out slogans for 2024. “Let’s build a new stadium campaign with a summer of mediocre baseball and your money,” or “Come see Bobby Witt before he wins a World Series with the Yankees,” “We are trying to win 80 games, give us a break,” come to mind, but I’m not an expert in that field.
I have gotten my paperwork together and I will be submitting it after the first of the year for special permission to get back on the Team Tony Luetkemeyer bandwagon. I was asked to leave over my opinions on property tax relief laws he passed, but I want back on, and I’ve gathered all the signatures necessary to be considered. They won’t let me drive again, but that’s understandable.
The police K9 dog bill fans sit at the front of his bus, but he has introduced legislation again for sports wagering and I’m all in. I figure the sports wagering fan boys can get seats near the middle of the bus or so; a few rows back of the rich senior citizens that have their property taxes frozen.
I reserve the right to gloat when the courts find “freezing senior citizens property taxes” to be unconstitutional or at least contrary to existing law, but until then, I’ll sit in my assigned seat and be quiet.
(Merry Christmas and Happy Baby Jesus Birthday to each and all of you)
