Summer Baseball: Malad, Soda Springs and other tournaments

At Dianna's I met someone from Malad Idaho over the fourth, and it has gotten me thinking about the role baseball played in our summers when I was growing up.  It was all consuming.  For many years the highlight was the Malad tournament, which came toward the end of summer.  It was usually the last of the baseball summer.

Baseball was not so organized in those days, and each community had their own team and would play other teams, but we weren't attached to a league, and so at the end of the year, Malad would invite teams to come and play.  It was always a 16-team tournament, and the person I met thought it was up o 32 teams now.  The competition was always very intense, and Hyrum being a small community, it was difficult to compete, but we would find a way. 

I played when I was 12, catching half the games.  I also helped Weldon coach many years, and then also coached myself a few years.  It was fun.  The town was exciting in those days, even though i was a small town.  It had a theater, bowling alley and swimming pool.  Some years we stayed at the American Legion Hall, and others at an old hospital.  Those were good times.  Usually a few parents would come and handle the cooking.  This included the DeBolt and McBride families. 

Malad teams

There were other tournaments, but Malad was always the best.  Soda Springs was usually 12 teams.  Later we participated in the Chubbock and Blackfoot tournaments.  These were fun tournaments.  But nothing like Malad.  There was also Preston and Richmond some years.  But Malad was the place of our dreams. 

Fox News

I wrote this letter-to-the-editor in response to a letter already published in the Cupertino Courier.  I think it was written in 2007, but the sentiment still applies today, and Fox News is still under threat of boycott, as they dare to present a different view than what is accepted in media circles.

As I read your contentions for boycotting Fox news, I was thinking you were making an argument for boycotting most of the major networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, as well as some of the major newspaper organizations and universities.  Talk about organizations that claim to be one thing, and then give us something totally different.  The left-wing media is the only place where people spew out biased garbage and then pat themselves on the back for being “objective”.  How can organizations that are traditionally 80-90 percent on one side of a spectrum be objective?  (Those are the normal statistics for media staff in terms of being affiliated with the democrat party.  If you look at editors the percentage is greater.)  Yet that is their contention, which is the biggest lie of all. 

Fox news is more centrist than these organizations, and therefore is deemed to be “right-wing.”  However I find them to be more fair and balanced than the other media, and see no problem with their claims.  We don’t all have to march to the same liberal drummer to be “fair and balanced”. 

Native American Gatherings: Round Dance

There is a pow wow in town and I am determined not to miss it.  My dad took me to some pow wows at Utah State, and attending is part of who I am.  I have lived on a couple reservations, Duckwater Shoshone and Uinta Ouray Ute, and have worked with Native American people.  I have attended these functions before, and in fact help put one on a couple of years in Nevada.  We called it the Duckwater Spring Festival and it was held in May.  It was really too early in the year to have consistent good weather, and so they still hold the same event, but later in the year.

Indian Dance is beautiful, and significant.  The Bear Dance was a traditional Spring dance which commemorated the bear, but also was a mating dance.  Of course thee is war dance and fancy dance.  I particularly like round dance, which is a coming together dance.  We had the whole community participate in Duckwater one time.  It was very powerful.  I also did round dance with the youth.  It was just as powerful.

Round Dance

I took some of the kids to West Valley Pow Wow a year ago.  The beat of the drum is intoxicating.  And so I am going tomorrow, even If I have to go alone.  It is 11 to 11, so I suspect I can find a couple hours.  Hit the link for details.