Dougie Walsh had a new grip on the baseball that allowed him to experiment with a wide range of pitches. His youth coaches had always preached throwing strikes and pitching to contact. Dougie, with his insane accuracy, often took this advice too literally and was often on the wrong end of 10 run rule games…
Read more The Boy Who Threw Strikes – Hang Loose Everybody, Hang Loose
Admittedly, my artistic drawing ability starts and ends with stick figures and primitive sketches. My character’s faces typically have no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no ears, sometimes a head of hair, most likely a hat of some sort. So when I see a mural or piece of art painted on a wall, side of…
Read more The Mural Of The Story – An 8Unassisted Photo Gallery of Wondrous Wall Art
I recently spent a week in Arkansas at a management training conference for the company I work for ArcBest (ABF Freight). It was the second trip to Arkansas in the past two months, as many of the corporation’s managers and supervisors (like myself) are just now catching on company training that Covid-19 short circuited. Classes…
Read more Afternoon Baseball at Baum-Walker Stadium for Arkansas vs Omaha
After Dougie Walsh pitched (perhaps) the worst game of his young baseball career, he hopped in his mom’s car with a giant scowl on his face. His mom asked him what happened out there today. Dougie shrugged and said, “I don’t know, I just couldn’t get a good feel for the baseball.” His mom asked…
Dougie Walsh was becoming a local folk hero of sorts. His recent heroics in nabbing or striking down a potential purse snatcher had garnered him a “Local Hero” medal from the Mayor. Friends and even strangers wanted to see how good Dougie’s aim was in other arenas, so they set out to discover just that.…
Read more The Boy Who Threw Strikes – Making Friends and Winning Prizes
At the tail end of March, I traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas for another week of management training. Four days of meetings, guest speakers on topics like health initiatives, conflict resolution, critical thinking and more related to my position as a supervisor in a busy trucking company – ABF Freight. Prior to my arrival in…
Read more The Billboard Says It All – Thank You, North Carolina
Dougie Walsh had a knack for throwing strikes. As a youth baseball player, Dougie would spend countless hours during the cold New England Winters in his garage throwing baseballs at targets like empty milk cartons. Once the weather improved enough to go outside, Dougie drew a strike zone on his parent’s shed and pelted it…
Read more The Boy Who Threw Strikes – An 8Unassisted Baseball Cartoon
Finding statues, memorial plaques, and historical landmarks has always been a priority when I travel. And I am talking about traveling to the next town over, a completely different state, or out of the country altogether. Statues and plaques help tell the story of a local hero tied to that area or sports town or…
Read more More Than Just A Statue – An 8Unassisted Photo Gallery of Statues
Ever heard a baseball announcer or a fan standing next to you at a game or a fellow coach in the dugout utter the phrase, “Good morning, good afternoon, and good night?” Me too and it is just one of hundreds of baseball slangs, slogans, and sayings that make the game of baseball so timeless…
Prior to attending North Kingstown High School in the school calendar year of 1986-87, I played 100% of my baseball outdoors. I waited patiently, like many of my baseball peers, for the snow to melt on our local fields and for Wickford Little League to start back up so I could head out to the…
The Rhiter - A Writer From Rhode Island 