The 2023 Major League Baseball regular season concluded last weekend. I only went to one game all season; a Royals-Rangers game back in May (my team, the Royals, lost). I didn't watch a single Royals game on TV this season. The broadcast rights are currently owned by Bally Sports which is not available on YouTube TV. It sucks that fans of any team in any city can't watch THEIR team play on TV anymore without subscribing to a particular provider or network. I think the games should all be on broadcast TV for FREE. I have also become frustrated by the sharing of broadcast rights by multiple providers. There are MLB games on ESPN, Amazon, Apple, and Fox. There are NFL games on Fox, CBS, NFL Network and Amazon. And the same goes for college football. I never know where a game is going to be carried. Everyone wants a piece of the "big money" pie. But back to baseball. There were 35 complete games pitched this season....total. Half of the teams didn't have any complete games. Just another example of how the game has changed and evolved with respect to pitching. Forty years ago, in 1983, there were 745 complete games. In 1974 there were 1061, and that was before expansion when there were only 24 teams.
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Many of the residents in our neighborhood are having garage sales this weekend. This morning, Reba and I walked by many of them on our morning walk. I was surprised at the lack of garage sale awareness in today's world. Garage sales are a way to get rid of things you don't want. They are not designed nor intended to make you rich. Prices should be in CENTS more than DOLLARS. At the end of the weekend, if you have made a little money and most of your stuff is gone, that's a win. But something has changed. Everyone is pricing their items like they are a retail store. An old office chair? $25. Nope, should be $1.00. An old, beat up kids desk made of fake wood, $75. Wrong, go with $1.50. A book for $1.00. Nope, books should be 5 for .25 cents. How about those old shoes for $5.00 per pair? Nope. Go with .25 cents per pair. When did this all go so wrong?
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Gioachino Rossini isn't in the news much these days. He died in 1868. But in 1842, he was in the news. This clip is from the October 4, 1842 edition of the New York Herald. His newest composition, the Stabat Mater, was being performed in New York. The work received it's world premiere on January 7th of that year in Paris. I can't verify if this was the first performance on the Stabat Mater in the United States, but it seems like it is possible given there weren't too many cities here that had the resources for such a production. I will keep searching for that answer. Stabat Mater is defined by Oxford as "a medieval Latin hymn on the suffering of the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion." It means 'the Mother was Standing'" Rossini's composition is very beautiful. Here is a short clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNi4hG7VWvI