Ray McConnell

Before he became a baseball icon, Kirk Gibson was a game-changing wide receiver at Michigan State. A dual-sport star and 2017 College Football Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson remains one of @MSU_Football's all-time greats. #GoGreen #CFBHALL #CollegeFootball #Highlights

“A man who has read a thousand books is armed for life; a man who has read none is easy prey. The man who has read a thousand books has lived a thousand lives. He has seen cities he has never visited, spoken to men who died centuries ago, and walked in worlds that no longer exist. Reading does not merely inform him; it enlarges him. It stretches the boundaries of his own experience until he becomes something more than himself.” -G. K. Chesterton

"Ray, people will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. "Of course, we won't mind if you have a look around,' You'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person. "They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack... And they'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.... The one constant through all the years Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come." "Shoeless Joe" W.P. Kinsella. "Field of Dreams" Dyersville, Iowa. Art by Stephen Wilkes, 2020.

BOOKS EVERY CATHOLIC SHOULD READ I. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST — BY THOMAS À KEMPIS II. PREPARATION FOR DEATH — BY ST. ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI III. CONFESSIONS — BY ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO IV. THE INTERIOR CASTLE — BY ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA V. THE STORY OF A SOUL — BY ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX VI. THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT — BY ST. JOHN CLIMACUS VII. INTRODUCTION TO A DEVOUT LIFE — BY ST. FRANCIS DE SALES VIII. THE SECRET OF THE ROSARY — BY ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT IX. UNIFORMITY WITH GOD’S WILL — BY ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI X. THE ART OF DYING WELL — BY ST. BELLARMINE XI. TREATISE ON THE LOVE OF GOD — BY ST. FRANCIS DE SALES XII. ON LOVING GOD — BY ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX How many have you read?

Padre Pio once said something to a young man in confession that stopped him cold. The young man had never met Padre Pio before. Had traveled hours to confess to him. Padre Pio looked at him and began listing sins the man had not confessed, sins from years before, sins the man had forgotten or buried. The man wept. He hadn’t told anyone. Not a soul. Padre Pio had the gift of reading souls. It was documented hundreds of times. Confirmed by the Church. Witnessed by bishops, doctors, and skeptics. He also bilocated. Was seen in two places at once. Had the stigmata for 50 years. Science had no answer. He simply said: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” He was canonized by St. John Paul II in 2002. If Padre Pio read your soul today, would you be ready? No pressure. Just a question worth sitting with. Ask him to pray for you. 🙏 ⬇️

"Hurt" is not an original by Johnny Cash. The song was written by Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) in 1994 for the album The Downward Spiral. Rick Rubin had to insist several times on Cash recording his version, at first Johnny found the idea completely insane because the original version is industrial and noisy. At 71, already very ill, almost blind and with trembling hands, Cash completely transformed the band. The iconic video, directed by Mark Romanek, was filmed at the House of Cash (his own museum). June Carter Cash appears looking at him fondly, the video was shot in February 2003, a few months before she died (May) and Johnny himself (September). Trent Reznor was so moved that he declared, "This song is not mine anymore." It is considered one of the best covers of all time.

In 1868, a bankrupt Louisiana banker with a ruined plantation and no income took some pepper seeds of unknown origin, mixed the mash with salt mined from underneath his own property, aged it in barrels, and bottled it in cologne bottles because manufacturing specialty glass after the Civil War was impossible. That bottle shape has not changed in 156 years... Edmund McIlhenny had lost almost everything in the Civil War. His banking career was gone. The Avery Island plantation he had married into was destroyed. When his family returned in 1865 they found the fields in ruin and allegedly a few volunteer chile plants still surviving in the wreckage. Nobody knows exactly how McIlhenny obtained the Capsicum frutescens pepper seeds that became the foundation of his sauce. What is documented is that he crushed the ripened peppers into a mash with rock salt mined from the natural salt dome underneath Avery Island, aged the mash in barrels, blended it with French white wine vinegar, strained it through cloth and bottled it in small cologne-type bottles with sprinkler fitments, sealed in green wax. Workers on the plantation used small red sticks called le petit bâton rouge to identify peppers at exactly the right stage of ripeness. In 1869 he sent exactly 658 bottles to grocers along the Gulf Coast at one dollar apiece. He secured a patent in 1870, and the sauce sold out immediately. Manufacturing specialised glass was essentially impossible in the post-Civil War South so McIlhenny used what was available. The sprinkler fitment on a cologne bottle turned out to be the perfect delivery mechanism for a concentrated pepper sauce best applied in dashes rather than poured. That practical wartime improvisation became one of the most recognisable pieces of packaging in the world. The original recipe, Tabasco peppers, Avery Island salt and vinegar, has not changed in 156 years. The salt still comes from underneath the same island. Every pepper seed used in production worldwide still originates from Avery Island. A bankrupt banker's post-Civil War improvisation, bottled in repurposed cologne bottles, became one of the most globally distributed food products in history. © Eats History

Chicago perfectly encircled by the setting sun tonight as seen from the Indian dunes This is not AI

• The Detroit Tigers • March 28th - August 10th, 2024: 55-63 August 11th, 2024 - July 8th, 2025: 90-47 July 9th, 2025 - May 18, 2026: 48-68 Just one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.

Detroit impressions: • The downtown is full of beautiful buildings. All of them seem to have been built specifically in the 1920s. I guess that is after the city had accumulated enough auto wealth but before the twin hits of Modernism and the Depression. (I hadn't known that the GM Renaissance Center, built as a revitalization project, was at the time the largest private development in US history, and also at the time the world's tallest hotel. It may be large, but it is not pretty.) The downtown is surprisingly depopulated -- both the streets and the sidewalks feel empty. That said, it didn't feel at all unsafe. There are lots of great homes in the suburbs. • The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation is amazing, and it's worth visiting Detroit for it alone. Among many (many) other things, it contains the oldest known surviving steam engine in the world, the actual Montgomery bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a deconstructed Model T, a deconstructed Eames Chair, and many great cars, agricultural equipment, locomotives, industrial specimens, and more. (They have the Lincoln Continental that JFK was riding in when assassinated -- which, apparently, was returned to service and used by several subsequent presidents.) • The museum made me wonder why American car design peaked in the mid-60s. (This fact is very evident at the museum.) The LLMs blame the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. (Not quite wtfhappenedin1971.com, but close.) • Good food exists but it is hard to find. • The Heidelberg Project also exists and is unique. • We stayed at the Dearborn Inn, which is wonderful, and contains cottages modeled after the homes of significant American figures. Dearborn (and Hamtramck) are now predominantly Muslim, apparently for reasons that go back a century to Henry Ford's $5 wage. Dearborn felt noticeably prosperous (we stopped for coffee at a fancy Japanese cheesecake cafe); Hamtramck did not. • Michigan.gov says that the Hispanic population of Michigan is just 6%. Coming from California, the absence is very striking. • The Detroit Institute of Arts is remarkable, particularly the room with the American landscapes and the section with the Dutch masters (especially The Visitation). An obvious question is why there is nothing quite like it in the Bay Area given how much richer the latter is than Detroit ever was -- we techies are just so uncultured by comparison. The Diego Rivera murals are amazing (and quite strange; you can see why they were controversial). • Detroit is full of historic plaques -- they are truly everywhere. This is presumably due in part to the fact that Detroit has a lot of history, but it still has many more than places with comparable historical depth. Some research suggests that it might be related to generous tax credits for historic preservation. Whether or not that is true, Detroit persuades me that other places should engage in more plaquemaxxing. • I recommend a visit! You overall leave with some sense for how exciting America must have felt in the early 20th century.

America didn’t just lose factories. It lost places where ordinary people could build an entire life without needing to escape their hometown first. The Packard Plant once employed around 40,000 workers in Detroit. The complex covered 40 acres and 3.5 million square feet. Big enough that entire neighborhoods moved to its rhythm. Shift whistles. Lunch counters packed before sunrise. Bars full after second shift. Churches, suppliers, little leagues, diners, machine shops, mortgages. One factory feeding an entire ecosystem. People look at the ruins now and see a dead building or a factory town. Thats too shallow. What died there was a version of America where practical skill still carried dignity. Where a man could learn one trade, stay rooted, raise a family, and feel connected to something physical and necessary. The Packard Plant is one of the clearest receipts we have that losing manufacturing didn’t just damage the economy. It changed the emotional structure of the country.

said this before but “you can take a two-week viking cruise that’s entirely on the great lakes” is one of my favorite facts to give non-locals a sense of just how big these lakes are

@jfogel6 He was removed after a lengthy first inning.

@RayPMcConnell Did Ben Jacobs get hurt or did he just leave after a lengthy first inning?

West Michigan WhiteCaps at Great Lakes Loons I came to see two of the Detroit Tigers top prospects: Bryce Rainer and Ben Jacobs.

That time Will Clark took on the entire Cardinals infield.

In @Johnubacon’s book, The Gales of November, I learned that the Edmund Fitzgerald was nicknamed the Toledo Express, and today I’m dining at Captain Ernest McSorley’s favorite restaurant.

fun fact: duluth, minnesota is the world’s most inland location accessible to oceangoing ships at over 2300mi/3700km from the atlantic via the great lakes and st lawrence seaway. the ship in this photo is headed from lake superior all the way to the mediterranean!

One of my best impulse purchases occurred Saturday in the Soo…such a fascinating book:

From The Saint Andrew Daily Missal:

Remember that stacked pitching rotation the Tigers had to start the season? Tarik Skubal - IL, elbow surgery Framber Valdez Justin Verlander - IL, hip inflammation Keider Montero Jack Flaherty - 5.90 ERA Casey Mize - IL, abductor strain Reese Olson - IL, shoulder surgery Troy Melton - IL, elbow inflammation Jackson Jobe - IL, Tommy John recovery Unreal.