Sometimes a crossword puzzle has a theme; sometime it does not. The same, I guess, with a blog post. Today has no theme.

Digresssion: Did you see today’s crossword puzzle in the NYT? Could you figure out what those colored squares were supposed to mean? I couldn’t. Does that make me a bad person? End of digression.

I finished reading George Vecsey’s biography of Stan Musial, called Stan Musial. As a literary work, I wouldn’t rate it very high, but as a biography of Stan Musial I think it serves its purpose. If you don’t know who Stan Musial was, he was a star for the St. Louis Cardinals for about 20 years and is compared in the book with Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams as the best players of their era.

How does Musial come out in the book? Basically, as a salt of the earth guy, nice to everyone, not overly intellectual, a little naive perhaps, and rather simple. A child of Polish immigrants, growing up quite poor in the mining town of Donora PA, getting a chance to play baseball (first as a pitcher) and jumping to the big leagues by the time he was 20.

He lived in St. Louis for over 70 years, ran a restaurant for many years (Stan Musial’s and Biggie’s) and for a period of time with Joe Garagiola (remember him?) a bowling alley (Redbird Lanes). He lived in three houses in St. Louis, two very modest ones in South St. Louis and then a less modest one in Ladue. He lived to be 92, and spent his final years battling Alzheimer’s and cutting not only his grass, but the grass of his neighbors (who knew?).

In addition (also in the “who knew?” category), he spent time campaigning for John Kennedy for president in 1960, traveling around with other Democratic celebrities (it is remarked that Musial was one of the few Democrats in professional baseball – may still be the case). One anecdote, having nothing to do with Musial, struck home.

Two of the other Kennedy campaigners were actress Angie Dickinson, and scholar Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. You probably don’t remember this, but in one blog post some time ago, I talked about when I became “Art”, rather than “Arthur”, and mentioned three people who, for their own reasons, referred to me as “Artie”, which (then, not now) made me cringe a bit.

I quote Vecsey: “Dickinson declined to go by formalities, even toward the august Schlesinger, whom Michenor [author James Michenor, another Kennedy hanger-on] describes as ‘not a man who unbends easily’” Dickinson addressed Schlesinger as “Artie” – probably the only person in history who did.”

Maybe this is just something every Arthur has to put up with.

Michenor, about 15 years older than Musial, and Musial became very good friends for the rest of their lives, by the way. This also is put into the “who knew?” file.

I found the entire book very interesting.

But that’s enough for the Cardinals. On to the Nats.

What kind of season will this be? After starting the season by falling several games below .500 with a bull pen that couldn’t throw a strike, they crept up to just under .500 and it looked like things were going to get better. And then they lost 8 in a row and were 9 below .500 and things looked awful. Now, they have won 7 of their last 9 and are with 3 or 4 of .500 (you can do the math), and we are back in questionable territory.

The thing about the Nats, for those of you who do not know, is that they are now a very, very young team. They have 11 players under the age of 25, and only five (Lopez, Chafin, Williams, Finnegan and Bell) who are over 30. So the future looks okay, but…..it’s baseball.

As I mentioned a day or two ago, I am now reading Being Henry, Henry Winkler’s memoir, and I am enjoying that, as well. The common element between Stan Musial and Henry Winkler is that they were both terrible, very bad, horrible students during their elementary and high school years, suffering from dyslexia, among other things, and they went on to great success because of their innate talent. There is clearly a lesson there, somewhere.

All of this baseball and Fonzie talk is to escape the reality of where we are today.  With all the turmoil our president has stoked in his first four months in office, the question is whether it’s possible he can keep it up for the next 44 months. That will be a tall order.

If he can and does, we may be beyond repair. If he can’t and doesn’t, it’s impossible to guess what that means. It seems we are on a lose-lose path, doesn’t it?

It does to me.