2017 baseball predictions

I've been making predictions for new Major League Baseball seasons for over 50 years. I've rarely been right about the World Series winner in my April prediction. Actually, I don't recall ever picking the correct World Series champion. That makes me as smart as the best baseball minds in Sports Illustrated, I guess.

This year, my baseball picks feature an unabashed bias for my favorite team, the New York Mets. Heck, if I'm going to be wrong again, I might as well go down with my favorite club. Then again, I haven't been right in the past being unbiased. So, let me try something new.

  

Charley's picks:

NL East: 1-New York, 2-*Washington, 3-Atlanta, 4-Miami, 5-Philadelphia.

NL Central: 1-Chicago, 2-St. Louis, 3-Pittsburgh, 4-Milwaukee, 5-Cincinnati.

NL West: 1-Los Angeles, 2-*San Francisco, 3-Arizona, 4-Colorado, 5-San Diego.

*wild cards

League championship: New York over Chicago

AL East: 1-Boston, 2-*Toronto, 3-New York, 4-Tampa Bay, 5-Baltimore.

AL Central: 1-Cleveland, 2-Kansas City, 3-Detroit, 4-Minnesota, 5-Chicago.

AL West: 1-Texas, 2-*Houston, 3-Seattle, 4-Los Angeles, 5-Oakland.

*wild cards

League championship: Boston over Texas

World Series: New York Mets over Boston Red Sox

By the way, Sports Illustrated picks the Dodgers to beat the Indians in this year's World Series.

Enjoy the season!

Photo of cover of Sports Illustrated The Baseball Book, 2006

End of the circus era

“And the circus boss leans over and whispers into the little boy’s ear
Hey, son, you want to try the big top?
All aboard, Nebraska’s our next stop”
— “Wild Billy’s Circus,” Bruce Springsteen, 1973

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus announced earlier this winter it would soon be going out of business, just as the Cole Bros. circus Bruce Springsteen might have been singing about seemed to have done in the past year. The Ringling Bros. circus stopped being a tent show 60 years ago, further distinguishing itself from troupes like Cole Bros. that continued touring the U.S. for entertainment dollars in returns for laughs and oohs and aahs.

Even as it continued playing multiple dates in big arenas with thousands of children of all ages, however, the Greatest Show on Earth could not sustain itself economically. In its quest to update its circus to the tastes of the 21st century, Ringling Bros.’ costs escalated to the point where it could no longer expect to break even financially, let alone turn a profit.

Ironically, the Ringling Bros. circus is exiting with a production named “Out of This World” which features ice skaters but no elephants for the first time. It’s thoroughly entertaining. Circus performers can take a final bow and leave with their heads high, knowing there will never be a show quite like it again in the U.S.

For more photos from one of the circus' final performances at the Prudential Center in Newark, see my Tumblr post at http://charleybruns.tumblr.com/post/158329991745/ringside-view-of-the-end-of-the-circus-era-and

You can read the handwriting...

Ten years of iPhone

Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone at the annual Macworld conference. I remember how pleased I was to obtain my first iPhone the following winter, even though there was not yet an App Store to load it with all kinds of cool applications. I realized then it was just a matter of time before Apple would overtake my company-issued BlackBerry in the smartphone market, although few were aware that a Google executive serving on Apple's board of directors would learn enough to launch a competing platform for his company shortly afterwards. 

I'm now on my fourth iPhone, a two-year-old gold-color 6. In addition to making my iPod and Palm obsolete, it's enabled me to put away my Nikon camera. And, I understand the camera on the iPhone 7 which my wife and youngest son got this winter is even better. I like it when technology simplifies my life! 

Thanks, Apple.

Starbucks: a personal history

Family and friends who know me as a coffee snob might be surprised to learn I was late to the Starbucks party. But, I've been making up for lost time.

Since I grew up drinking Cuban-style cafe con leche my mother learned to make from my abuela, before crafting them myself as a teenager, I never cared much for the Dunkin' Donuts or typical convenience store, diner or restaurant coffees widely available in New Jersey in the 1970s. With few exceptions, I would find them weak, tasteless or just plain awful. During the late '70s and early '80s, in fact, I would sometimes go to a Greenwich Village cafe on weekends to have great espresso-based coffee made for me and my date (who eventually became my wife).

New Jersey's first Starbucks cafe opened in Ridgewood in November 1993, according to the New York Times. Although it's hard to believe, the first New York City Starbucks cafe (at Broadway and 87th Street) didn't open until the following year, in April 1994.

It wasn't until March 2002 that I first tried Starbucks coffee. I was in Honolulu and, disappointed in the weak local kona coffee, I ventured into a Starbucks cafe across the street from my hotel and ordered a caffe latte. That first cup reminded me of my grandmother's coffee, which to that point in my life had only been matched by my mother and Cuban cafes on Bergenline Avenue in Union City, New Jersey. I went back to that Starbucks cafe every morning while I was in Honolulu. Today, almost 15 years later, I can still think of sitting in the balcony of my hotel room, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, when I enjoy a caffe latte.

When I returned from Hawaii, I sought out local Starbucks cafes and never was disappointed by their coffee or service. Whether I was in the U.S. or Europe, I would be impressed by the consistency of their quality and pleased by their friendly employees. Away from home, I would find some comfort relaxing in their cafes with a morning or afternoon caffe latte.

When we visited our eldest son in college, my wife and I and our youngest son would stop at a Starbucks in White Plains and order coffees for the ride home. During the nearly fours years I worked in midtown Manhattan, I looked forward to stepping out to a nearby Starbucks some afternoons for a pick-me-up coffee to bring back to the office.

My tastes eventually expanded to appreciate some of their other drinks, including pumpkin space latte, chai tai latte and smoothies (typically with a shot of espresso added). Along with the classic caffe latte, my favorite Starbucks coffee is the flat white with some vanilla powder mixed in and a dash of cinnamon on top.  

Today, less than 25 years later after they first appeared in the New York metropolitan area, there are over 100 Starbucks locations in New Jersey and almost 250 in New York City, and that's not counting book stores, hotels and other businesses that "proudly serve" Starbucks coffees.

Although Starbucks has managed to grow exponentially without compromising the quality of their beverages, the same can't be said of their service. Not all baristas are friendly, and a clean, comfortable cafe in which to relax is no longer a given. I guess that's to be expected from a chain that grew from 17 U.S. locations in 1987 to 22,519 globally on June 28, 2015 (according to www.starbucks.com) and now has almost 240,000 employees, few of which are likely to make it their career.   

I still enjoy an espresso-based coffee at a Greenwich Village cafe. I'm grateful for the increasing number of Cuban cafes appearing across New Jersey and New York, the ones of which I've sampled offer outstanding coffees. I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality of McCafe coffees, and in fact have stopped at McDonald's just for their lattes. My family continues to get a kick out of the different espresso coffees I craft for them. 

I still find satisfactory coffees at diners and restaurants few and far in between, and usually don't bother ordering them at the end of my meals anymore.  I still haven't tasted a good cup of coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, even though there is one less than two blocks from my home. The convenience store coffees I've tried have been unremarkable.

A Starbucks cafe when I'm away from home and wanting a great cup of coffee, on the other hand, remains a welcome sight. I've enjoyed making up for lost time, coffee snob that I am. 

Relaxing at a Starbucks cafe in Zurich, Switzerland; March 2011

  

Appreciating our Vietnam veterans

To a generation of Americans, the Vietnam War era is a dark chapter in U.S. history. The mid-1960s to early 1970s, when U.S. involvement in Vietnam was most intense, was a turbulent period. The country seemed divided like it had not been since the Civil War 100 years earlier. Unprecedented numbers of people questioned whether American lives should be risked in battlefields. Some young Americans resisted the call from Uncle Sam to serve in the armed forces.

Over nine million Americans were on active military duty during the Vietnam War. Of those, 2,709,918 served in Vietnam. Nearly 60,000 never made it home alive. Approximately 75,000 returned to the U.S. severely disabled.

According to Capt. Marshall Hanson, USNR (Ret.) and Capt. Scott Beaton as cited in the US Wings website, 85 percent of Vietnam veterans made successful transitions to civilian life. Also, 91 percent say they are glad they served and 74 percent say they would serve again (even knowing the outcome). Still, it took years for many Americans to fully appreciate the sacrifice of Vietnam veterans.

Among those who served in Vietnam are volunteers at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center in Holmdel, N.J. In addition to answering questions and providing guided tours, these veterans share information about the war and their time in Vietnam with 8,000-10,000 high school students who each year visit the museum, the only one of its kind in the U.S. What the veterans have to say is sometimes difficult for fellow Americans to hear.

During a recent visit to the memorial and museum, I heard one volunteer recall a woman not wanting to sit next to a returning Vietnam veteran on a plane because he was a "baby killer." Another museum volunteer said he told people he was stationed in Germany rather than Vietnam for 20 years afterward because of the hostility he faced. Other volunteers remembered being yelled at by anti-war protesters.

I also heard a volunteer say he feels closer to other veterans at the memorial and museum than his own brother and childhood friends. That's because of the experience and passion they share to educate young people about the Vietnam War. As I left, I thanked one of the volunteers for not only the interesting tour and information he shared with me, but for his duty in Vietnam.

The great majority of Vietnam veterans are now well past 60 years old.  Let's hope they can live their "golden years" knowing that Americans appreciate their service during a difficult time in our country.

After the election

Yesterday was sunny, unseasonably warm.
Outside our door, we could see surfers riding the waves.

“We can’t lose, it’s election day
We can choose, it's election day
The sun is gonna rise
The stars are gonna fly”
— from Election Day, by Walter Salas-Humara and Sam Bisbee, 2011

Today is damp, autumn-like cool.
Outside our door, we can see surfers riding the waves.