PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Like many others in this “pandemic era,” I look for good news where I can find it.

It was not hard to do so this morning when I read the Wall Street Journal. There, I found a story on the potential re-start of professional baseball.

The story recounted negotiations between baseball brass and the players’ union.

I am a sometimes baseball fan, not a regular one, so I won’t go into detail on all of the back-and-forth negotiations. But one aspect caught my attention. It was this:

“Under baseball’s proposal, the game would look considerably different—and not just because there would be no fans in the seats. High-fives and spitting potentially would be banned.”

Note the most critical fact: SPITTING WOULD BE BANNED.

See, during the pandemic, I can be impressed with the smallest of often irrelevant details.

But, over the years as I have watched baseball on TV, I could not help by notice a salient fact – almost everyone spits. On occasion, I even was tempted to try over the hours of a game on TV to count the number of times I saw spitting.

Which only confirms, I suspect, the sad state of my mind on some occasions.

Spitting will be no longer if baseball actually re-starts.

I say good news as I look for anything bright in the dull and foreboding pandemic.