Odds and sods

Uh-oh, here come those bullets again:

• After a nice start to the month, the kids' baseball teams have come back to earth with a thud. Maria's Rockies played hard but lost a 21-10 decision to a hard-hitting Mets team at a sun-baked Pike Lake. Maria had her best game yet, getting two hits and scoring her first run of the season, while also having her first chance to play catcher. She has wanted to do that for a long time; too bad her first chance came on a day when it was about 89 degrees and humid. She will take the field again on Wednesday against the mysterious Padres; game time will be 6:30 at Floral Park in Arden Hills. As for Ben's Brewers, the word on the street is that they took a horrific thrashing from the Nationals, losing something like 41-4, or maybe 45-4, at the evil Southpoint Park in North Oaks. I don't know the score for sure because I didn't see the thrashing; since Maria's head coach was traveling on business, I had to step in and coach Maria's team last night. Ben's league does not have a mercy rule and it's pretty clear that the Nats showed no mercy. After a while, you would think the other team would call off the dogs, but it didn't happen. The weird thing is, the Brewers beat the Nats during the mid-season tournament. Go figure. Ben and his pals will try again tonight, this time against the Athletics, at Wilson Park in Shoreview. Game time is 6:30.
• I've been trying to put a longer piece together on the immigration issue, but I'm finding it difficult to express my views properly. There is so much mendacity afoot on all sides of this issue that it's tempting to simply walk away from it all. We need to figure out how to solve this problem, but I don't sense there's much good will left. I do plan to revisit the issue, but I'm going to let it percolate for a while.
• Meanwhile, I read that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's job approval rating is something like 19%. Looks like the word is getting out about the D's, doncha think? I also hear that Chuck Hagel, the self-righteous Robert Mitchum look-alike who masquerades as a Republican senator, now has a credible challenger in next year's Republican primary in Nebraska. It would not break my heart to see Hagel go down, that's for sure.
• Both the pro baseball teams that garner allegiance in this outpost are really scuffling right now. The Twins had a dismal weekend against the lowly Washington Nationals, dropping games to the immortal Jason Simontacchi and Lavale Speigner, both washouts from the Twins farm system. I do sense that the Nats may have a potential solution for the Twins' woes at DH, however; they may want to take a flyer on Dmitri Young, the hulking switch-hitter who doesn't really have a position with the Nats but who sports a .350 batting average and demonstrated power. The Nats like reject Twins pitchers; maybe they'd take Scott Baker or something for him. Young would fit quite nicely in the six hole for the TC Men. As for the Milwaukee Brewers, they seem lost right now. Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy continue to have remarkable seasons, but the clutch hits are not happening and the pitching has been pretty spotty. I don't think a visit to Detroit is the cure, but we'll see what happens. Thankfully the rest of the NL Central is even more wretched than the Brew Crew has been lately.