Mad Max at the Baseball Dome

What would it be like to live in a dystopic future? To play professional sports in an empty stadium, like Rome after the fall?

Yesterday, America found out, as the Orioles and White Sox contested in front of 45,000 empty seats in Baltimore. A failure of governance that caused the shut down of a major American city, and the bizarre spectacle of baseball with no fans allowed inside the park, for their own safety. A one-time occurrence or a harbinger of the future? I write about it here.

HistoryWatch: Gibbon's Birthday

On this day in 1737, Edward Gibbon, the greatest Enlightenment historian was born. Last year, I was in Rome on the 250th anniversary of the famous day he decided to write a history of the "decline and fall of the City."

You can find a brief celebratory piece marking that anniversary here. 

Nuclear Deja vu

What could possibly be the odds that the grandson and namesake of the man who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is now in charge of America's nuclear bombers? This takes historical rhyming to a new level. A short piece on Brig Gen Paul W. Tibbets IV is here. 

Some Life Lessons, Courtesy of Baseball

Every spring, hope returns to millions of baseball fans. Growing up a Chicago Cubs fan, that moment of expectation was particularly powerful, given what usually transpired during the rest of the Cubs' season.

Yet the real hope that baseball gives is tied to life lessons: on hard work, responsibility, and the occasional heroics. At no time do these lessons, and the optimism that comes from them, appear more powerful than when a heralded rookie gets his shot in the Major Leagues. Early this year, that lesson was provided by the Cubs' Kris Bryant. I wrote about him and the larger meaning of his call-up to the Show here.