Are the End Times Upon Us?

I’ve been watching the first spring training game of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are playing the New York Yankees. I cannot shake the feeling that the time is out of joint, that the end times may be upon us.

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  Logo of the Guardians

  The Cleveland Indians are now, after more than a century, the Cleveland Guardians. Perhaps they’re now providing home security.
• Umpires are wearing advertising. Apparently this unfortunate innovation is not going away anytime soon. Is advertising next going to appear on player uniforms? Will individual players have sponsors. Where does this end? Does MLB an an insatiable appatite for ever more income?
• The designated hitter has come to the National League. Real baseball is now officially dead, and baseball managers are now relieved of performing one of their most difficult jobs.
• There is even talk of outlawing the defensive shift. Perhaps we will place markers on the field and require that every play must begin with every player on his designated mark.

And, of course, Vladimir Putin is threatening to initiate World War III.

It’s been a halfway decent world while it lasted.