The Cost of Costs

We recently took a trip to Tennessee to visit family and were distressed to discover the inflationary impact these two costs had on our trip: 

1) The cost of rental cars. For example, in 2018, I rented a car for 7 days at the daily cost of $33.01 @ day. (All of the costs that I will be referencing includes taxes and fees)  In 2020, the cost was $46.38 @ day for a 6 day rental. Compare that to June 2022, where the rental rate was $82.40 @ day for a 9 day rental!

2) Gas prices. Continuing the trip examples above, in 2018 the cost of a gallon of gas averaged $2.52. In 2020, the average was $2.17 (Pandemic + supply exceeded demand). In June, 2022, the average cost of a gallon of gas was $4.96! 

Now anyone who has purchased anything in the last year realizes that these are not the only areas impacted by the surge of inflation that we are currently experiencing. Grocery prices in 2022 are averaging over 7.8% higher than 2021. In fact if you've attempted to purchase electronics, cars, food, and even homes you have been impacted by the product and employee shortgages, as well as the disruption to shipping around the world.  

But let's drill down and take a closer look at gas prices to see what is driving costs so high. 

The Summum Pyramid

In 1979, or maybe it was 1980, I spent a few weeks with some friends in Salt Lake City. What drew us to this city was first and foremost, free lodging. A wonderful family, whose names I cannot remember, invited us to stay with them while we explored the city and they would often accompany us on local adventures. 

Looking back I was blissfully unaware of the propaganda that I was exposed to on a daily basis, mostly I was enamored by their very pretty daughter who enjoyed hanging out with us for some crazy reason. (I think it was a light attraction to our Southern accents and a stronger desire to share her Mormon beliefs) We would usually end the day around their piano in the living room, where I would play some of the more popular songs that I could remember and they would sing along. We would end up with twenty plus people gathered in their living room and afterward we would just talk, play games and hang out. On most days we would take trips to local attractions like the Mormon Temple, several museums, a local amusement park, Donut Falls, the Capital building, Salt Lake, the Bonneville drag races, explored a couple of the ski resorts that surround the city, played hide-n-seek in a ghost town, and visited a huge copper mine (?). But the attraction that stood out the most during my time in Salt Lake City was the Summum Pyramid. 

What Makes Baseball Different?

One of my favorite writers is Joe Posnanski, who I discovered after a friend recommended his book, "The Big Red Machine." After I finished the book, which I found to be even better than my friend's recommendation, I started searching for more of his books and in the process discovered his blog. Some of his best posts, in my opinion, are about baseball and this article is from a recent post on his website. Enjoy!

"I would describe what I’m doing now as shaping the book — that is to say I’m turning baseball inside out, immersing myself in it, trying to look at the game in what I hope are novel ways. And for that, I’m putting together countless lists. I have lists everywhere, in about a dozen different notes apps, on a bunch of different pieces of scrap paper, on voice memos.

One of the lists I’ve been updating is called “What makes baseball different?” The inspiration was George Carlin’s brilliant and essential “Baseball and Football” routine, (posted below) which I memorized years ago and can still do, in its entirety, on command. There are so many insights in that routine that still boggle the mind, but the one that I think of most is this one:

“In football, basketball, soccer, volleyball and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball. In baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.”

What a mind he had. This is, of course, exactly right. No end zones, no goals, no baskets, no holes, no nets or lines. In baseball, you have to beat the ball home.

Anyway, I started this “What makes baseball different?” list … I have absolutely no idea what role, if any, it will play in the book (which is, after all, built around a countdown of the greatest moments in baseball history). But I was looking at it the other day and thought: Hey, people might like to see this. In fact, they might even like to contribute to it.

So here’s the list as it currently stands — what makes baseball different.*

Tennessee Baseball - SEC Champions!

Coming into the weekend, With Tennessee's 9-2 win over Georgia and Arkansas loss to Vanderbilt on Friday, the Vols have won the conference for the first time since 1995 and for the fourth time in program history. 

Coming into the weekend, Tennessee needed a combination of three involving wins of their own or Arkansas losses. With the Vols’ back-to-back wins to achieve the series win over Georgia and Arkansas’ day one loss, Tennessee has the conference wrapped up heading into Saturday.

Tennessee's series win comes at the hands of an Arkansas loss, who were the regular-season SEC champions a year ago. 

Tony Vitello is the third Tennessee baseball head coach to win the regular season SEC title, joining Rod Delmonico, who coached the 1994 and 1995 Tennessee Baseball SEC champions, and S.W. Anderson, who coached the SEC champs in the 1951 Tennessee Vols.

Tennessee’s 2022 SEC title is just another accolade for the Vols who continue to dominate this season, making history at every turn. 

Vitello touched on what it meant for the program to win the SEC, and Tennessee's skipper described as simply checking another box this season. 

"I think at the end of the 30 games, you want to have checked five or six things," Vitello said following the Vols' game two win over Georgia. "So, if you can get to co or outright SEC champions, you've checked almost all of them, and the outright thing is a little bit of a separating factor. With everything our teams are trying to do in our league, [winning the SEC] means we've checked a lot of boxes."