Game called. The Copycat goes down Swinging.

Game. Set. Match.

Game Over.

Extra Innings.

Lovely ball.

Overtime.

Double Overtime.

End in tie.

Disqualification.

Qualification.

Change your thinking.

Change your mind.

Change your body.

Muscle up.

Liquor up.

Steroid up.

For Goodness sake: Base up you blockheads and play like a man. Take it like a man.

If you are a man. If you are not a man, play like a woman. Take it like a woman.

Egads. The differences are not out of control. The people who think incessantly about the differences are out of control.

Base up you blockheads.

Grantland Rice wrote a poem about the GOAT: (Disclaimer: The GOAT was a male). Written in the poems depths, he eloquently writes:

”It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

Grantland also recognize something for what it is. True talent.

Rice was unafraid to turn out the light when it was appropriate:

Please, read, learn, listen and hear:

”The greatest figure the world of sport has ever known has passed from the field. Game called on account of darkness. Babe Ruth is dead.” August 16, 1948

The GOAT: The Fireside Book of Baseball Version (1956)

”Game Called. Across the field of play the dusk has come, the hour is late. The fight is done and lost or won, the player files out through the gate. The tumult dies, the cheer is hushed, the stands are bare, the park is still. But through the night there shines the light, home beyond the silent hill.”

”Game called. Where in the golden light the bugle rolled the reveille. The shadows creep where night falls deep, and taps has called the end of play. The game is done, the score is in, the final cheer and jeer have passed. But in the night, beyond the fight, the player finds his rest at last.”

”Game Called. Upon the field of life the darkness gathers far and wide, the dream is done, the score is spun that stands forever in the guide. Nor victory, nor yet defeat is chalked against the players name. But down the roll, the final scroll, shows only how he played the game.”

The original version of this poem was published in 1910 by The Tennessean Company. In 1948 Rice changed it into a eulogy for Babe Ruth. The original version was re-printed in “The Fireside Book of Baseball” in 1956.

How you play the game:

Animals, wild or domesticated species, do not think this way. They really are not concerned with making friends with what they plan to eat. Animals guide their offspring to hunt. In order to eat to survive. It goes something like this: Animals hunger, they see their food, they run after the kill, kill it, and eat it. Raw. Not necessarily heated, toasted, microwaved or cooked.

and leave the bugs in the dust where they belong.

How you play the game:

Humans on the other hand, teach a different set of “hunting” skills to their offspring. A different set of “friendship” species skills. Sometimes, they learn by an example, they were taught, they then guide their offspring to buddy-up-to, flirt, bribe, buy and claim familial relations, name recognition“whatever” to eat their dinner.

The worst part of this human-hunting-extra- innings “game” is the epic failure to teach our children the basics of life:

Winning and losing.

Egads. It is out of control. Schmoozing is for schmoozers. If you are not certain what a schmoozer is, look it up. I guarantee the animal species does not have any idea or care to participate in schmoozing.

So. Best to give up the “hope” of a friendship that is destined to wreck your life. It has very little to do with species, friendship, rainbows, butterflies, and kittens.

Which, by the way, they need to eat too. Any being needs to sustain itself to sustain life.

Generally, life centers around: Survival. Survival of the fittest.

Good to remember even and especially on this special of days: Earth Day.

Because sustaining the life of our species requires many forms of fitness. As our primate ancestors taught us. And I, for one, am proud to walk their walk. Even if I am a little “harried”.

Humans are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and large, complex brains. As homosapiens, we are required to use our heads and hands in order to survive—hunt, gather, cook. The more sophisticated of developed tools, culture and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. (Wk)

Some humans take their special skills serious step further, and enlist their hearts in their fellow sapient survival. Heartwarming to say the least. Thank God for their existence in the greater good. For our greater good.

Some humans take their special skills a step further to a more sinister, darker, intruder-like-sugary-hunt and gather such as “letme buy ya a beer” sapient-survival tactic. And we will se what happens……..

As a bonafide homosapien descendant myself, fairly certain when I walk among my other animal friend species, they care not for beer, wine, margaritas, gin, whiskey, etcetera. They would not know a hunter-manipulator-flirted-buddy’s-up if they saw one. It is not in their ancestry, their genes. They are accustomed by their nature to hunt, work eat for their food. Sustenance.

Curiosity and human desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity’s development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. (Wk)

Remember, curiosity killed the cat. Just saying’. And some friendships, well, they can be over rated, over stated, over grated and over ated.

Rewrite history? Naw. Can’t do it. I embrace my primate ancestors and all our similarities and differences. I would not change a thing! They made me who I am today. I love their walk. I love their talk. I love their strength. I love their hair. I love their heart. I love to look deep into their eyes.

And I love to share a meal, my food with them.

Survival of the fittest? Good question. I don’t know.

Political of the fittest? Good question. Is it woke. Or a joke.

Rhetorical of the fittest? Good question. Gets old. Fast.

Guidance of the fittest. You know, the ones with a heart.

Yes.

If not guidance that shows Obvious. Apparent. Fact. Law. Order. Then.

Game called.

Lights out.