Expected findings

It’s October and time for post-season baseball, so I thought I’d open with this anecdote about our national pastime. A safe choice, perhaps, since unlike presidential elections, there’s no crying in baseball.

While breaking up a double play in the 1934 World Series, St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Dizzy Dean was struck in the head by a wildly thrown ball. The brash and colorful Dean later told reporters, “They X-rayed my head and found nothing.”

Ah, to have been a sports copy editor back then and write that headline!

Speaking of headlines, since the news broke last week that the guy in the White House tested positive for COVID-19, we have received a steady news stream of garbage and obfuscation. Mostly from his personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, including these gems:

• “He has not needed any (oxygen) this morning, today, at all.”
• Lung X-rays found “expected findings.”
• “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.”
• “He may not entirely be out of the woods yet.”

Going well, I think.

This dude’s not even as good as a broken clock that’s right twice a day. But then again, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, like Conley.

And now, just a few days after testing positive, being hospitalized and treated with everything from experimental drugs to steroids and antacid, the unmasked president is back home assuring us all not to be afraid of COVID-19, adding: “Don’t let it dominate your life.”

If only. My hair is on fire. Be not afraid. Tell that to the 211,000 Americans who have died of this disease.

Not entirely out of the woods? Stay tuned.

Take it from me. As a recovering golfer, you don’t want to be in the woods. Ever. Because you’re likely to receive a penalty stroke or run out of balls. Or both.

But, back to baseball.

In 1934, the St. Louis Cardinals went on to beat my beloved Detroit Tigers in seven games. We got our revenge in 1968. It only took 34 years.

They beat us again in 2006. We had tickets to one of the home games. I was recuperating from surgery to repair a badly broken ankle and couldn’t go. Rebecca went without me. Not bitter. At all.

As Groucho Marx said in his 1940 film, Go West: “Time wounds all heels.”

That said, and despite any personal or political differences, we should all show the current president and his family the same amount of sympathy and respect they showed the family of Sen. John McCain.

I wish the president a lengthy recovery.