About second chances- "Slouching Toward Fargo"

Initially assigned by Rolling Stone magazine to produce a "hatchet job" about Bill Murray and his part-ownership of a minor league baseball team, Slouching Toward Fargo instead was written by Neal Karlen to highlight the fun and good times that should be the heart and soul of baseball.

Even though the St. Paul Saints baseball team was like an "old-time carnival" and consistently sold-out its home, Midway Stadium, offering second chances was the result. Darryl Strawberry, Kevin Gardner, and J.D. Drew were on the roster for a time, as were Ila Borders (first woman pitcher in men's professional baseball), Dave Stevens, and Wayne "Twig" Terwilliger.

Mike Veeck- sounds like wreck- ensured that the fans "got their money's worth" with Tobias, the fresh-baseball delivery pig and inflated sumo-suit wrestling. Veeck, Murray (who attended games when his movie career allowed), athletes, and many other talented front-office people made Midway the best destination of the "Twin Cities" of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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In many ways, farm energy production is a second chance the U.S. to regain a bit of energy self-sufficiency. Wind energy in SD carries an estimated 1,030 billion kWhs of power each year; ethanol production and biodiesel production bring better prices for commodities as well as a means to solve a waste-disposal problem by converting used cooking oil into biodiesel. These two forms of energy are abundant in many states and remain "underperforming assets."

Local electricity generation and local biodiesel production for use in transit, fire fighting, mail delivery, and other and services will reduce municipal electricity bills and fuel costs. And the air might smell more like fried chicken than diesel fumes by the end of each day.

But no freshly mown ballpark grass here; today the temperatures are sub-zero and the skies sunny. Standing next to a south-facing wall makes me almost smell that grass; walking back to my car (it's not a St. Paul Saints "Northern League car") instantly snaps me back to "the real world." My footsteps "eek-auk" up to the driver's-side door which groans, as it always does when it is not just cold out there; it's damn cold.

(About now I wish Summer had a second chance.)