Baseball Everywhere

Southwest Airlines

There were no television screens, the flights attendants handled the safety demonstration with no video, and seated around me were multitudes of young people with an iPad, Smartphone, laptop, or some portable electronic device. We had just reached 10,000 feet from our takeoff at San Diego International Airport. The attendants voice comes on the intercom, “You can now use your electronic devices.”

Casually I opened the inflight magazine and begin to thumb through the articles. What’s this - Free WiFi complements of DISH Network, watch inflight TV on your portable device. “Baseball Everywhere” is the commercial you hear repeatedly when MLB advertises their AT Bat App, they are not kidding.

As of July 2, 2013 - “DISH (NASDAQ:DISH), the leading pay-TV provider, today announced “TV Flies Free” marking the first time TV entertainment is free for passengers aboard Southwest Airlines® (NYSE:LUV). Beginning today for Southwest Customers using iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, or most other Internet-ready personal devices, DISH is providing free access to live TV and up to 75 on-demand shows on the airline’s more than 400 Wi-Fi-enabled aircraft.”

This truly is the age of the portable electronic device. Very cool, and simple - just turn on your device, touch settings, choose Southwest WiFI, close settings, open Safari, and choose which station to watch. Lori had mentioned to me before leaving home that FOX Saturday baseball started at 10 a.m. and I would probably miss it. Well, not today - just click on FOX 5 and it truly is baseball everywhere.

Now, to the younger generation that take these devices for granted, this innovation may seem rather boring. But for this naive baby-boomer who vividly remembers getting only three stations (ABC, NBC, and CBS), from an antenna mounted on the garage, on a black-and-white console TV the size of a dresser this truly is science fiction come to life (see space technology).

Comments

Chasing the Magic

In this episode, Chasing the Magic: How the Summer of ’98 Inspired the 'Ball Boys' . . . Do you remember that feeling? The late-summer air was thick with humidity, radios crackling on porches, the smell of fresh-cut grass and barbecue smoke in the backyard. Every evening carried a new kind of suspense—the country holding its collective breath after every pitch. “Did he hit one today?” became more than a question; it sparked a nationwide conversation. For me, and millions of others, the summer of 1998 wasn’t just another baseball season. It was theater, a movement, a time when the game recaptured something sacred. As sportswriter Mike Lupica said so perfectly, “No matter how old you are or how much you’ve seen, sports is still about memory and imagination. Never more than during the summer of ’98, when baseball made everyone feel like a kid again, when it felt important again.” Just four years earlier, the 1994 players’ strike had left the sport bruised...

Beyond Facts

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . . This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...

Retirement Talk

In this episode, Patrick & Huck: Retirement Talk . . . We all get caught daydreaming sometimes, don’t we? Just like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn might’ve done, lazyin’ by the river with a fishing pole in hand and the BIG wide world spinn’ in their heads. This morning, with coffee steaming and plans bubbling, I found myself driftin’ into a chat with none other than my imaginary friend–Huck Finn himself. Patrick: “Mornin’, Huck. Say, I’m mighty curious what you’d make of this retirement business.” Huck: “Well now, sit tight, ‘cause I’ve been thinkin’ on that too. Only thirty-one days 'til you're sixty-nine — whew! You're talkin’ ‘bout quittin’, hangin’ up your spurs, Givin’ the workin’ life its final good slurs. Ain’t got no debts, no mortgage, no fuss, Just clean livin’ and freedom waitin’ on the bus. Most folks’d throw hats in the air, cheerin’ loud and proud, But you? You’re starin’ out yonder, lost in some cloud. You're dreamin’ of cyclin' and books and guitar...

Drifting with Purpose

In this episode, Drifting with Purpose: What Huck Finn Teaches Us About Finding Your ‘Why’ . . . Have you ever re-read a book and felt like it had changed while you weren’t looking? That’s exactly how it feels diving back into Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to be swept away again . It had been decades since I first met Huck and Jim. But here I am – older, hopefully wiser – and finding their journey down the Mississippi more powerful and more relevant than ever. This isn’t just another dusty classic. Twain's masterpiece is a living, breathing story – one that speaks through laughter, danger, awkward truth, and uncomfortable beauty. It’s a book that dares you to ask: “What kind of person am I willing to be?” Right now, I’m deep into Huck and Jim’s incredible journey, and what’s striking me the most isn’t just the plot or the river—it’s the voice. Twain’s masterful use of local dialect pulls you straight into the 19th-century Amer...

On The Fly

Search This Blog