Three Months Later

Many things have taken place over these last three months for myself as well as for everyone else. 

I think we can all agree that it has been a long three months, for many reasons and for some obvious reasons. 2020 alone was exhausting, I believe I aged five years over the calendar year. The long toll has definitely crippled our senses while rising our anxieties.

And you may have noticed, yes...

It's been three months since I have posted anything (October 14th) on The Boys of Summer and that post was supposed to part of a series. The post drought was my longest period without posting, in its entire 8-year existence. Blogger has gone through some changes, and I wasn't thrilled with the changes for this blog service, and with that I will be making a transition to a new blog service with the same title, and eventually I will lead you readers in the direction to that site once its up.

Until then...

The Boys of Summer will continue on here for the time being. 

Part of the reason for the long writing drought, was that I was emotionally & physically drained.

So to pick up from my last post, there was the few weeks leading up to the dreaded Election Day. An election in which its results were destined to disappoint half of the country, regardless who you were voting for. I took my week's paid vacation that week, and knocked out many games for my AGBA League project (which I will get to later in this post). I decided to take my vacation that week, because I knew my wife (who deals with anxiety issues) would be a possible mess that week... hell, who am I kidding? I took the vacation for my well-being as well. 

There was the strange holidays in which we didn't visit family or was visited by family due to the proper protocols to keep ourselves, particularly my wife (who's high risk) safe from Coronavirus. 

Plenty of my readers would recall that my wife had a health scare starting in August 2019 in which the doctor found a cancerous tumor on her right lung. She would eventually have surgery in late October that year, in which she would stay in the hospital for at least three weeks in the hospital. Two-thirds of her top right lung was removed, and it was the great APBA community to get us through those tough months ahead. 

Despite feeling blessed that the surgery went well, catching the tumor in good time, and having my wife beat cancer -- Becky and I, cursed 2019 out the door and thought 2020 would be a great year. It turned out to be the worst year not only in our lifetimes, but for most peoples' lifetimes.

Oh, don't worry, I don't plan to talk about the entire awful year of 2020.... Certainly, let's move forward as much as possible.

I will mention that we were blessed to have my mother beat COVID-19 as she got out of the hospital by Christmas time. It was believed that with all her health problems, if she got COVID she would be "toast" as most of the doctors put it. My mom was in the hospital back in August 2020 with kidney issues, and with no spleen she had a hard time (three weeks in hospital) fighting those issues. So when we heard she contacted COVID through her dialysis group, the news was like a punch to the gut.... but it all turned out for the best, as she proves time and time again that she has lady luck on her side (surviving two major heart attacks as well).

So the awful year could have really ended on a much more horrible note.

I have had to deal with tendonitis issues in my right arm in the forearm, elbow and bicep areas. Being right-handed plenty of rest was needed and recommended by the doctor, and although I could have kept rolling with my left arm with the dice tower, I decided not to play much of December. I decided to dedicate myself to keeping Becky's spirits as high as they could possibly get in December & the holiday season despite all the crazy circumstances.

Once again my regular readers would remember that our cat, our daughter of 14 1/2 years passed away back in August. We were completely broken-hearted saying goodbye to our little panther cub Isabelle. To put it into perspective, Isabelle was in Becky's life before I was in Becky's life. 

We never would have imagined that a month later we would have adopted two litter mates (brothers) in Castor & Pollux (Cass and Polly for short) -- born last week of May or first week of June, making them Geminis... So we named them after the Gemini Twins from Greek Mythology. The two brothers were actually part of a cat colony that broke out on my folks' farm. We didn't plan on adopting, we went out there to look at them, or at least that's what I thought. To be honest, I think Becky knew all along our trip to my parents' house that we were coming home with two kitties.

These two boys have been a great blessing for Becky and I, and therapeutic at the same time. By the way, you can follow these two handsome devils on Instagram (thecastorandpolluxshow).

Now onto some APBA news, I started a league called the APBA Galaxy Baseball Association (AGBA, and yes its pronounced AG-BAH). You can go back and read about the genesis of the league & league setup in previous Boys of Summer posts back in June, for more details on the project. In short, AGBA has 36 teams separated into three 12 team leagues, with two divisions in each of those leagues. Those three leagues are named the Eastern, Central & Western Leagues. The teams have 30 players on the big league roster, and 10 players on a reserve roster. The 30 players are comprised of 10 players from 1968, 1993 & 2018 -- A fifty-year span with 25 years separating between the three time periods. The next season will consist of 1969, 1994 & 2019 -- there can be no less or no more than 10 players from each period. 

The AGBA season has already witnessed three no-hitters, starting with Bob Veale's no-no for the Pittsburgh Arsenal, then followed by the St. Louis Saints' Bob Gibson & Atlanta Firebirds' Greg Maddux.

I will do more posts about what's actually going on during the AGBA season, all while I work on a site for that league.

The season is coming along nicely, it's been a lot of fun! I am about to start playing games #13, #14 & #15 for each team. I am overall happy with the pace, I always knew this first season would take some time since I am still involved with the 1978 APBA Replay with my brother Chris (which you can follow on the Delphi Forums' APBA Between the Lines -- Look for the handle 'Brothers in Dice' or my name shawnbaier76 on there).

I am about to leave Facebook a week from now, the reasons why will come out in another post. If you are already Facebook friends, shoot me some PM's through Messenger, we can exchange digits & email accounts. For people who want to be part of my AGBA email chain, for AGBA news also let me know.

Until next time...