Sometimes it is hard to follow the baseball

As the World Series started tonight I am reminded of a tragic base ball story I read about that ends in hope, love and faith. Picture this – a family enjoying a baseball game outing. A father, mother and their beautiful 4 yr old boy at a minor league game in Niles, Ohio watching the Class A Mahoning Valley Scrappers game. They were given tickets sitting front row just behind first base. As they settled into their seats they noticed as they looked to home plate that they needed to squint; the sun was in their eyes. As observing as a dad may be, he commented on watching out for foul balls. As a couple innings went by the sun was setting and they let their guard down.


Chad, Nicole and 4 yr old Luke Holko were having a wonderful evening. Luke was hamming it up for pictures but was starting to get tired and had asked to go home. Minutes later the worst happened – a foul ball was hit. Of course plenty of people yelled “watch out” but before anyone knew it Luke was hit by the foul ball. His skull was fractured. He automatically went limp in his father’s lap.

Within minutes Luke was carried to the concourse and whisked away in an awaiting ambulance. Nicole being a medical assistant knew the situation was not good. She was made aware how grave it was when they were told he needed surgery immediately because the blow had knocked part of Luke’s skull toward his brain. Pressure was building and he was not stable.

So many questions? What if they were not in that seat? What if the batter took that pitch? What if there was some type of netting? Chad and Nicole do not place any blame. They are aware of foul balls at a ball game. They saw the warning signs. Chad even had mentioned that they should be aware. There about 40 foul balls per game. The average major league team sends about 3,000 foul balls into the stand each year.

The Holko’s do have insurance and their community has offer lots of help. No one knowing what their medical expenses will add up to. Luke’s condition has improved from critical to serious but stable. The doctors say he is in a “locked in” position with the ability of knowing what is going on with limited response. He now is moving his arms and legs and pushing yes/no buttons. He has even begun to swallow bits of Popsicle.

Chad and Nicole believe in hope, love and faith. They pray and focus on helping Luke heal. They hold on to the positives. They know that every little thing that Luke accomplishes is a blessing.

You can follow Luke’s progress at www.caringbridge.org/visit/lucasholko

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NBA Season is here

Tonight the National Basketball League starts their season and every team is in first place as the night begins. The new season arrives with promise for all of the thirty teams in the league. Parity is not part of the NBA mantra however, as there is huge disparity between the haves and the have not’s. There are literally only a few teams with a chance to win the league championship.

The NBA is one of the premiere leagues in sports rivaled by the NFL and MLB. The league can be seen on TNT, ESPN, and ABC. With great television exposure the stars of the league are well marketed and the league is extremely profitable.

The overall talent in the NBA has never been better with an influx of foreign players. The NBA is now a world league like MLB is now. Each team now has foreign scouts to judge talent all over the globe. Since 1999, a foreign player has been picked within the first fifteen picks of the NBA draft every year.

With the salary cap the NBA has, it is almost impossible to make a bad team better in one season. An exception to this was the 2007-2008 Boston Celtics who went from last to first with two blockbuster trades. Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett were both traded to the Celtics in separate deals before the season started. While this is not the norm it can happen.

Year after year, the lowlife’s in the league fail to become competitive because of the way the league is structured. If you are mediocre one year, you will continue to be mediocre until you either make that rare trade or you win the NBA draft lottery. Teams like the Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks and the Golden State Warriors have continued to lose year after year because they can’t find that one superstar to put them into title contention.

The NBA is a superstar driven league and if you do not have a superstar you will not go very far. Stars like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Lebron James do not just dominate a game they are the game. They make their teams instant title contenders year after year. It is the supporting cast that determines whether you go far into the playoffs or not.

The players today are definitely not like the players of old. In every sport the athletes are getting bigger and stronger, but in the NBA the players have not just become bigger, faster, and stronger, but their pure basketball skills have diminished as well. Basketball fundamentals have slowly become a thing of the past. While I still cheer loudly for the amazing slam dunks that I see in the game today, I still like to cheer the behind the back pass or the bank shot. I have not seen a good bank shooter since Jerry Schiting in the mid 80’s.

I still enjoy the NBA immensely and I hope that the game will go back to its roots of passing, shooting and defense. Games that go 10 minutes without a basket is becoming the norm in the NBA. Final scores of 75 to 70 have become a regular occurrence in basketball and the games have become a bit of a bore. Let’s hope as the new season arrives teams will go back to fundamental basketball. NBA fans will cheer no matter what for their teams and their favorite players regardless of the basketball being played, but there is still nothing wrong with playing it the right way.

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If we put a man on the moon, then why can't we.....

I love to say, “We put a man on the moon, yet we still have not figured that out?” I put some of these thoughts together and will share a few.

Do you ever drive in the morning and one pot hole in the high speed lane creates the biggest traffic jams day after day? Why can’t they just fix the pothole and save everyone’s gas? Seems like the Department of Transportation is not using its brain here.

It takes years to build a bridge nowadays yet it should only take no more than a year. Delay after delay for no apparent reason other than the fact that we try to extend every project to maximize the cost to keep the costs up. The army core of engineers can build a small bridge in a few hours.

Why can’t we find a way to make bread last more than a few days? Every time I try to go to make a sandwich I always find the bread to be stale. Can we make bread last as long as we now make milk last two months?
I want to know why we cannot find a way to stop the world from going hungry. We throw away more food everyday than we could possibly eat. Shouldn’t we be able to feed the world? Why can a simple process get so complicated?

I do not understand how this country cannot produce a vehicle that does not need gasoline. We can go to the moon, the moon for god sakes, and we depend on gasoline fueled cars and trucks. We make synthetic oil now, what is wrong with making synthetic gas?

We brought Apollo 13 home on a whim yet we cannot work a miracle like making a substance that will fire proof a home. Five alarm fires are on the nightly news at least once a week and yet we do nothing about making it a thing of the past. Lives are lost because of faulty materials yet there is not a company that has yet to step up to make a fire proof house, why?

How about a light bulb that last more than one thousand hours?

Sneakers that do not wear out.

Grass that will grow anywhere, a personal wish.

Pens that will never run out.

Computers that will not crash. (No offense to Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Jobs)

And a cardboard box that will not let items fall through the bottom.

We have the ingenuity to do so many great things and hopefully if we put some of that ingenuity to the problems we now face things will get better


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