The U.S. and Michigan both set records for the number of daily cases in the last week. The stock market finally said enough is enough and took a big drop today. The Dow was down over 2%, while the S&P and NASDAQ were down 1.6%. We will see what the next few days bring. The market is sensing uncertainty. When it does, it only goes down.
In Michigan the stat that scares me is hospitalizations. Daily hopsitalizations have increased from 484 on October 1 to 1,489 as of today, a 300% increase in less than 4 weeks. More importantly, the hospitalizations are occurring outside of SE Michigan, where hospitals are not as equiped to handle the volume of cases. Please act responsibly by wearing a mask, social distancing and washing your hands regularly. It has been proven that these three things can significantly reduce the spreading of the virus.
Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed today as the next supreme court justice. Do you think the senate Democrats are now looking back and regretting their changing the procedures in 2013 to allow presidential nominations, including judges, to be confirmed by a simple majority vote of the senate, versus the previously required 60% approval? At the time, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.”I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this. And you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.” I think that time has come.
Saturday evening I felt a sense of normalcy for the first time in a long time. After Leah and I took care of our grandkids so Katy and Brad could go out to dinner, we returned home and I was able to watch the Michigan football game and the World Series before I went to bed. It felt normal to be baby sitting, watching the world series and watching football all in the same day. Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last very long.
I really enjoyed watching last nights World Series game. Tampa Bay Ray Manuel Margot took his shot at a Jackie Robinson moment by attempting to steal home with the Ray’s down one run. The veteran Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw kept his cool by not balking and by stepping off behind the pitching rubber and then throwing to his catcher in time to tag Margo out on a bang-bang play at the plate. By stepping off behind the pitching rubber, Kershaw became an infielder thus his throw to the plate was no longer considered a pitch. This allowed both the catcher and umpire to quickly get into position to make the play and the call. Without Kershaw stepping off backward the catcher would have needed to stay in position so he could receive the pitch and not interfere with the batter on a pitched ball and the umpire would have had to call the pitch. Neither the catcher or umpire would have had time to get into position to tag the runner or get a good look at the play at the plate. A straight steal of home is the most exciting play in baseball, unless of course your the umpire having to make the call with all hell breaking loose in front of you. I can tell you that from experience.