On this ride, your hosts Steve and Mal hurtle from Point A to Point B while they speculate on how there might be some crying in baseball, contemplate bullying and its behavioral opposite, and admire the pileup of dirty snow en route.
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Show notes:
A nice article from the University of Wisconsin-Madison about de-escalation skills in a teacher-to-college-student context can be found at https://osas.wisc.edu/guide/verbal-de-escalation-techniques/. For example, at the beginning of that article we are advised to keep in mind that:
“1. Reasoning with an enraged person is not possible. The first and only objective in de-escalation is to reduce the level of arousal so that discussion becomes possible.
2. De-escalation techniques are abnormal. We are driven to fight, flight or freeze when scared. However, in de-escalation, we can do none of these. We must appear centered and calm even when we are frightened. Therefore these techniques must be practiced before they are needed so that they can become ‘second nature.’”
And, for a different context, here’s an article from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) about de-escalation for journalists: https://www.rtdna.org/news/safe-training-part-3-verbal-de-escalation. That article contains this memorable observation: “NEVER say ‘Calm Down.’ These words do not work during a verbal conflict! Never in the history of “Calm Down” has anyone ever calmed down.”
As to the phrase “There’s no crying in baseball,” this from a web page of the Society For American Baseball Research (we kid you not) at https://sabr.org/journal/article/theres-no-crying-in-baseball-balls-bats-and-women-in-baseball-movies/: “Almost two decades after its release, A League of Their Own remains memorable as much for rescuing the AAGPBL [All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League] from oblivion as for its now-iconic line, spoken by Rockford Peaches skipper Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), an alcoholic ex-major leaguer who is an amalgam of Jimmy Foxx and Hack Wilson. After be-rating player Evelyn Gardner (Bitty Schram)—as any manager might—Dugan is aghast when Evelyn begins to cry. “Are you crying?” he asks, rhetorically. And he continues: “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!”
Calvinball is (we are not making this up) mentioned in a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. This from the American Bar Association Journal at https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/justice-jackson-accuses-supreme-court-majority-of-playing-calvinball: “Jackson’s Aug. 21 [dissenting] opinion [in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association] … criticized the majority’s order allowing the National Institutes of Health to end $783 million in grants for research related to diversity objectives, gender identity and COVID-19.
“‘This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,’ Jackson wrote. ‘Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins.’”
Band drama: posts about it can be found in a Quora thread at https://www.quora.com/What-bands-had-notable-drama, including but not limited to this (unfortunate, to some of us) post: “Creedence Clearwater Revival had notable drama that continued long after the band had disbanded.
Lawsuit after lawsuit, a horrible recording contract, friction between brothers that was never reconciled… that band was a soap opera that lasted for decades.”
On the other hand, apparently band drama can produce beauty. According to an article that can be found at https://americansongwriter.com/have-you-ever-seen-the-rain-ccr-behind-the-song/, John Fogerty has reportedly said about his heartfelt and wonderfully moving hit song, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?,” “That song is really about the impending breakup of Creedence. The imagery is, you can have a bright, beautiful, sunny day, and it can be raining at the same time….” This calls to mind the saying, “You have to suffer to sing the blues.”