I am a Motorcoach . . .

. . . as red on the inside as on the out on this trip. I’m transporting members of Cardinal Nation to Jupiter . . . Florida that is, baseball Mecca at this time of year.

Have you heard of a thing called a “bucket list”? Well, a couple of my passengers mentioned it when talking about our journey to Jupiter. Best I can tell this is some kind of game. It’s played with an invisible kind of bucket full of favorite wishes. The goal is to see them come true before someone “kicks the bucket” . . . presumably hard enough to knock all the wishes out of it. It seems as though, for some, fulfillment of a Spring Training pilgrimage is a wish item removed from the bucket and converted into treasured memory. I think that’s how the game is won, one fulfilled wish at a time. (If my interpretation is off, feel free to contact me with any clarifying insights into the game).

Now let me tell you, it’s not easy for me to appreciate this bucket thing being referenced with such sacred pleasure. To a motorcoach, buckets in the context of diminishing contents mean one thing: spare parts kept around for servicing other motorcoaches of the same make and generation but still in action. It’s a subject to navigate away from for as long as possible.

Selfies

(which by definition means I’m in them . . . though you might have to look for me)

Florida . . . where the sunlight is brighter, shade is cooler, shadows are deeper, palm trees are ubiquitous, and flowers bloom all year. I was thinking I look especially good in this colorful place, but someone said everyone feels that way.

And I thought the point was to be on the beach . . .

MEETING THE NEWS on the roadways of America, first-hand, real time, real world news—going out and discovering the news . . .

NEWS OF BASEBALL FICTION: In the heyday of the Negro League spectators turned out early to be entertained by mimed baseball action so convincing it was said to be difficult to decipher if it was fiction or if the real game had already begun. They called it Shadow Ball.

THE PRESIDENTIAL NEWS: In April of 1910 President William Howard Taft was the first President to throw out the ceremonial “first pitch,” which he did in Washington to open the season. Later that same year, while taking in a ballgame President Taft stood to stretch his legs in the middle of the seventh inning. When fans followed by standing in honor of the President the “seventh inning stretch” was instituted.

NEWS OF LOGO SERENDIPITY: In 1921, Branch Rickey attended a Men’s Fellowship Club meeting at Ferguson Presbyterian Church. Ladies of the church had decorated the tables with painted cardboard cardinals perched upon equally artistic representations of tree branches. Rickey was so struck by the appearance that he turned it into the iconic ‘Birds on the Bat’ Cardinal logo, which was introduced on the team uniform the following year. Prior to that, the Cardinal uniform (though noted for its bright cardinal-red trim) was logoless.

GATOR NEWS: Once hunted to near extinction, alligators now number more than 5 million throughout the Southeastern United States, and around one and a quarter million in Florida. They apparently cannot even be kept out of the lake at the Washington Nationals brand new baseball stadium complex.

NEWS OF BEGINNINGS: Florida is home to the oldest continuously occupied city established by Europeans in the continental United States. A couple hundred miles up the coast from our tour focus – Jupiter and West Palm Beach – St. Augustine, Florida was founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles.

NEWS OF TWO STORMS: On Thanksgiving day 1984 a hurricane washed away part of a beach in Jupiter, Florida. A year later recreational divers made the discovery of two cannon and an anchor exposed by the storm’s removal of a portion of beach previously supporting a lifeguard tower. An official team of archeologists and experienced treasure hunters would later expand the discovery to four anchors, ten cannon, and numerous other artifacts. Among the finds was an abundance of Spanish coins dated primarily from 1658 and 1659. Historical discoveries followed. It was a Spanish Colonial Shipwreck. The ship had set sail from the Terra Firme (South America) port city of Cartegena on Columbia’s Carribean coast on September 18, 1659. The ship’s master was Juan de Ortacala and it carried an agent of the Viceroy of Peru, Juan Ramirez de Miranda. The name of the ship was the San Miguel de Archangel, and like its discovery in 1985, a storm was responsible for its 1659 demise in Gega (the present Jupiter inlet).

(Unlike selfies, these are not about me, but about travel discoveries I think you’d like to know about.)

If you’re a Cardinal fan, Roger Dean Stadium isn’t just where the games are played in the spring, It’s where Cardinal Nation flocks together before migrating north every year.

Shipwreck Bar and Grill (1511 N Old Dixie Hwy, Jupiter, FL) – definitely a “10” on the Yum! scale of passenger praise in word and emoting. The grouper, the stuffed shrimp, the prime rib, the cheese cake. . . . But implied in the name of this restaurant are treasures beyond the culinary sort. In fact, there is a room of them, treasures from the sunken Spanish ship, San Miguel de Archangel. Owner Scott Thompson is one of the divers involved in recovery of the artifacts and a partner in Jupiter Wreck Inc., owners of all rights to the wreck site. When in Jupiter, this is a Must destination on two counts: delicious food and history at its touchable best!

Major League umpire Al Clark was not easily persuaded he had no authority to eject someone from our tour. Spending time onboard the tour, Al entertained everyone with his good humor and great stories. Clark was there behind the plate when Nolan Ryan won his 300th game and when Randy Johnson pitched his first no hitter, and was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco when the 1989 World Series was suspended for ten days due to earthquake. Al Clark Is now an inspiring and engaging public speaker; and his book, Called Out But Safe, A Baseball Umpire’s Journey, has received high praise.

Quote Of The Day samples

“There are three types of ballplayers: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” ― Tommy Lasorda

“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer .” – Ted Williams