Baseball, Politics and Big John

Pitchers and catchers reported for duty yesterday (finally!) and uncharacteristically the temps were mild and the sun was shining in Chicago so my eight year old, Cooper, and I broke out the gloves and ball for our own spring training.

As a preface to make the rest of this recount understandable, Cooper and his classmates are in the middle of doing biographies of famous Americans of their choice.

So while we were lobbing the ball back and forth we led off with a little Abraham Lincoln knowledge since that's Cooper's subject.  He explained how Lincoln ended slavery, he was shot and some other tidbits.  I asked him if he knew the name of Lincoln's wife (he did). Then I off-handedly said her full name "Mary Todd Lincoln" which brought the discussion around to how women's last names change when they get married and whether their middle names change (essentially their maiden names becoming their middle names).  And then a great question - "When a woman gets unmarried do they have their old name back?"  I love that question on so many levels.  I love the wording.  I love the thought process.

We moved on to other biography subjects, namely George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Bush.  So we got hooked on some Presidents.  Two interesting observations from my horsehide slinging dude.  "Is Barack Obama really the first black President?"  Apparently Cooper thinks America should be a little further down the progressive thought process.  Then we talked about all the living former Presidents and their Vice-Presidents.  We identified the former Presidents still among us and Cooper wanted to know if they all died would their Vice-Presidents become President?  "And what if the President and Vice-President died?"  Ok, quick introduction to the Speaker of the House.  Fortunately he didn't question things further lest I be required to explain the Secretary of Agriculture.

We moved away from the class biographies and turned to topics he's learned recently so I was able to hear the details of Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hicock and Buffalo Bill Cody.  In amazing detail.

We finished our ball tossing conversation with impressive and long (I mean loooong - I think a couple of snails crossed the driveway) insight of "Big John" and how he stood up for the little guy and that he outworked a machine trying to destroy a rock that was in the way of building a railroad track.

Somehow I think Jason Heyward, Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant are having completely different conversations as they loosen up for the 2016 campaign.  But I guarantee they are not having a better conversation.