Welcome to our newest podcast Thoughts Theories and Queries with Steve Valdez – check out his webpage at https://newclevelandradio.net/listening-links/thoughts-theories-and-queries-steve-valdez/theories-steve-valdez/
Theory#4
Baseball: Leave it alone!
Baseball has been around for almost a century and a half. And like most sports, it has had its share of equipment upgrades, team re-alignments, and rule changes.
The pitcher’s mound has been raised and lowered. Teams have jumped from one league to another. Baseballs have been juiced and un-juiced (but let us not open up THAT wound!).
Though sometimes annoying, these changes are bound to occur from time to time. But what makes them tolerable is that they originate from MLB itself. Or the Player’s Union. My point is that the changes are made by the League and for the League.
And then, someone allowed non-baseball folks to have an opinion. Announcers, columnists, the “casual fan”. And their opinion was universal – “The game’s too long, the game’s too slow. There are not enough runs being scored. There are not enough home runs. There are too many strikeouts.” Nails on a chalkboard, people, nails on a chalkboard. They say that more people would watch the game if there were a time limit on it, or if only a limited number of extra innings were allowed. Stop already!
Where to begin………First of all, these complainers are not trying to make baseball better, they are trying to make their lives and jobs easier. A faster pace and fewer extra innings would make the announcer’s job, which is just an ad-lib infomercial of the game, much easier because they wouldn’t have to work so hard to make up little anecdotes for the listener to enjoy. I guarantee you, if they were paid by the hour and not by salary, we wouldn’t hear a peep from them on this issue!
And the casual fan? Why would anyone even care about the casual fan? By definition, they only tune in to the game when they are bored with everything else. Nothing else to binge-watch on Netflix, the Cooking Channel is showing a baking show and I don’t bake, all my “texties” are really annoying me right now…..Then they turn on the game and they say, “What a boring sport! I would totally watch it more if it was only an hour-long”.
I define “texties” as people that you text on a regular basis.
Theory #1
Spelling Always Counts
This was one of my first theories from way back in the day. Before cell phones, before emojis. But even with the plethora of different ways to communicate now, my original statement remains true.
The first thing that jumps out in a text or email or even a birthday card is a misspelled word. It might as well be highlighted. Then the reader, consciously or subconsciously, wonders…was the person in a hurry and didn’t want to bother correcting it, did they know it was misspelled and were too lazy to change it, or do they just not know how to spell? The person reading the communique is not only wasting time trying to figure out what the problem is they are also making a subtle judgment on the sender as to their level of intelligence.
This also applies to abbreviated texts and emojis. What if someone is flirting with you inappropriately? Imagine that! And instead of saying LMA (Leave Me Alone), you type LMAO ( Laughing My Ass Off). When you thought you were discouraging him, you were actually encouraging him!. Same with emojis. What if you’re trying to impress someone and you think that you are sending him a smiley face with one hand waving and you accidentally send him a smiley face with one hand-picking his nose?!
OK, you’re probably thinking that I’m making a HUGE deal out of nothing. The fact is, nobody thinks twice about spelling when they read something that has no...
