It was on this day in 1865 that Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were free.

That was two months AFTER the end of the Civil War and TWO YEARS after the Emancipation Proclamation. To say that change comes slowly for African Americans is more than just an understatement.

Then again, Texas has always been a century or two behind.

The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was ratified in December of 1865. Three years later, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship and equal protection of the laws to former slaves.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment guaranteed African American men the right to vote. Women of all colors had to wait another 49 years to vote. As it turns out, White men don’t like sharing.

Progress for both women and Blacks has been slow and grinding, but expansion of rights and freedoms has always marked the upward trajectory of mankind.

It took another 100 years though, until Congress actually did something to protect Black Americans, who were often kept from voting by any means possible, from poll taxes to written exams and pure intimidation.

It was the process of intimidating Black voters through terror campaigns; torture, fire bombings and lynchings that gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK, as in TucKKKer Carlson).

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made most forms of voter suppression illegal, but even that protection was gutted in 2013 by the Right wing of the Supreme Court under the cover of very contrived jurisdictional issues and the improbable argument that racism in America was over.

Which brings us to Juneteenth 2022.

Last year, President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making it a federal holiday. As you might guess, some states have been more than just a little reluctant to join the celebration.

Since that time, most states run by Republican legislatures have passed bills restricting voting rights and prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory, a term not one of them could define.

Critical race theory looks at the way our attitudes towards Black people are woven into the very fabric of Americana, from our workplace to health care, education and our judicial system. It’s an attitude that goes back to the arrival of slaves in the Virginia Territory in 1619.

Like anti-Semitism, it’s an attitude ingrained in a culture feeling both fear of and superiority to the others.

In December of 1960, 6-year old Ruby Bridges began first grade at all-White William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Escorted by federal marshals, she faced a daily barrage of rocks, taunts and threats.

Ruby Bridges didn’t just survive, she thrived. She went on to become a civil rights activist and won a Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.

The people pushing back against CRT have no idea what it means. They just don’t want their children to know that their mothers and grandmothers were the ones throwing rocks at Ruby Bridges.

If Ruby Bridges could endure all that and go on to success, those little White snowflakes can certainly survive learning the history of our nation.

In 2019, New York Times Magazine commemorated the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of the first slaves in the American colonies with a study of slavery in America called the 1619 project.

It seemed like a reasonable endeavor, except to the anti-science, anti-history, anti-education, anti-books, anti-everything crowd.

The pushback was immediate and everyone with a Confederate flag on his truck was suddenly wearing a 1776 hat, much the same way they rebuffed the Black Lives Matter movement with the All Lives Matter euphemism.

We can have statues of Robert E. Lee in all our public spaces, but when it comes to America’s Indigenous People and the Black men, women and children that were brought here in chains and sold like bales of cotton, we refuse to pull back the curtain.

All this begs the question; What, exactly are we celebrating on June 19th?

Juneteenth is a reminder that White America has to be dragged kicking and screaming into any recognition of Black America’s right to exist, to enjoy the rights and freedoms taken for granted by the rest of us.

Juneteenth is a symbol of White America’s resistance to sharing this land that they claim is God’s gift to us all. The fact that it is now a federal holiday offers small comfort amidst a raging blaze of pushback.

Anyway, enjoy the day. Let’s see if we can make it to July 4th.

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Kevin Alcántara (Photo by Stephanie Lynn)

MLB

AAA

Omaha 9, Iowa 3

Game Recap

The I-Cubs were facing off against a potential future Hall of Famer on rehab assignment (Zach Greinke).

Jared Young had a big day at the plate (and it bears pointing out again that the Cubs are now giving him reps at 3B, presumably in an attempt to increase his versatility as a potential bench bat). Hitting a very long home run off Grienke is an accomplishment in itself.

Deep fly for JY! pic.twitter.com/pEJ3QBV6tz

June 19, 2022

The second time may just be the charm for David Bote as well. He looked good at the plate for the second straight game as he restarts his rehab. Fingers crossed, but Chicago may just have some reinforcements available soon.

It wasn’t a good day to be a Cubs pitcher though. Starter Robert Gsellman was knocked out of the game after giving up four runs in the 3rd, and then each of the three relievers allowed the Storm Chasers to score as well.

Top Performers

Jared Young: 2-3, HR (11), 2 R, 2 RBI, BB (.261)David Bote: 2-4, RBI (.216)Darius Hill: 1-3, 2B, R, BB, CS (1) (.396)

Injuries, Updates, and Trends

It’s been a rough season thus far for Brendon Little. He missed April with an injury, then did manage to post a 0.00 ERA over 9.2 IP in May despite a very high walk rate, but things have taken a turn for the worse in June. He’s now given up a run in all six of his appearances this month (12.38 ERA) as opposing teams have now begun to get some hits against him in addition to the walks. The stuff still looks good and he’s missing some bats, but the command and control have got to improve if he hopes to make a run at a 40-man spot during the 2nd half of the season.

AA

Pensacola 5, Tennessee 3

Game Recap

The top of the order did its job as Yonathan Perlaza, Jake Slaughter, and Matt Mervis combined to reach base seven times and hit all four of the Smokies extra base hits. The rest of the lineup couldn’t hold up their end through, and the 5 run hole that Riley Thompson (0.1 IP, 5 H, 5 R, BB, 0 K) dug the team in the 1st inning proved too much to overcome.

It was Thompson’s first start since returning from a month on the Developmental List, and the results couldn’t have been worse. There wasn’t a good camera for the game, so I can’t comment on how, why, or if concern is warranted, so for now I’m just going to chalk it up to a bad day implementing whatever changes they made while working with him these past few weeks. Chris Clarke did have a great piggyback outing. He was forced to enter in the 1st, and proceeded to strike out eight while putting up zeroes on the scoreboard over the next 5.2 innings to give his team a chance.

Top Performers

Jake Slaughter: 1-2, HR (6), 2 R, RBI, 2 HBP (.367)Yonathan Perlaza: 2-4, 2B, 3B, R (.235)Matt Mervis: 1-3, 2B, 2 RBI, BB (.303)Chris Clarke: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 8 K (4.86)

High-A

Quad Cities 6, South Bend 1

Game Recap

I’ll take a solid outing from Kohl Franklin at this point. It at least gives him a bit of momentum to build upon in his next time out. He allowed just one hit and one run through three innings yesterday, exiting with his team tied 1-1.

There just wasn’t much offense for the Cubs in this one. They’ve recently lost much of their power production to promotion, and are currently forced to rely on stringing together singles and walks to score most of their runs. That’s a tall order, and the results have been inconsistent, as you would expect.

Top Performers

Kohl Franklin: 3 IP, H, R, 2 BB, 2 K (10.13)Jake Washer: 1-3, 2B, BB (.298)Yohendrick Piñango: 1-4, 2B (.260)Luis Verdugo: 1-3 (.226)

Low-A

Myrtle Beach 6, Fredericksburg 2

Game Recap

For the second time this week Kevin Alcántara came up just short of hitting for the cycle. Well, he actually did better than hitting for the cycle earlier this week as he hit a second homer in lieu of a double, but this time around he did come up one hit short (a triple) of completing the cycle.

There are still the occasional rough games mixed in, as you would expect from a 19-year old in Low-A, but the big games outnumber the bad ones, and even when he’s just okay he tends to do something to help contribute to Myrtle Beach’s frequent victories.

Standing 6’6″ with long arms, he is a hitter who would be naturally susceptible to having a long swing, and it will be an ongoing battle with pitchers trying to bust him inside in an effort to prevent him from getting his arms extended. Think of how teams always attacked Kris Bryant, hard inside, and soft away. Alcántara will face the same test.

This isn’t the greatest example since it’s an offspeed pitch, but the swing mechanics are the same for fastballs, and Alcántara shows the same ability against velo.

June 19, 2022

What I’ve love in his progression this season is that he already shows the approach and mechanics necessary to combat that approach by opposing pitchers. Alcántara regularly lets the ball travel deep and takes it the other way. And there are few 19-year olds I’ve seen recently who manage to do so with as much power as him. The other key is the way he has condensed his swing and shown the ability to stay inside the ball and get the bat through the zone on inside pitches. He does so fluidly, and again, with power.

His mechanics may need to change as he fills out his frame, and it’s possible he loses a bit of that fluidity and quick twitch, but it is such a good sign that he already knows how to use his tools at such a young age, and the hope is that someone so capable of adjustments at this stage in their career will be able to continue to do so as he ages.

Will be interesting to watch Alcántara develop physically. I know PCA odds on favorite to be in CF but no prospect is sure thing. Need to develop other options. Alcántara might just maintain his athleticism as he fills out. If he does he becomes a unicorn as CF capable of 30+ HR. https://t.co/44EYGI0O0D

June 18, 2022

Alcántara wasn’t the only story in this one. Sparkplug second baseman Juan Mora had himself another good game, with three hits, including his fourth homer. Tyler Schlaffer scuffled a bit in April when he would end up giving up a homer that would ruin an otherwise solid outing, then struggled a bit with his command in May. He’s settling in so far in June though. He did have one clunker, but even including that he’s posted a 3.79 ERA and 12-to-1 K-to-BB ratio over 19 IP.

We call him Juan Baseball for a reason.

Mora touches all the bases with an inside-the-park home run! pic.twitter.com/Tgzg4oxXab

June 19, 2022

Top Performers

Kevin Alcántara: 3-4, 2B, HR (10), 2 R, 2 RBI (.286)Juan Mora: 3-5, HR (4), 2 R, 2 RBI (.279)Ezequiel Pagan: 1-3, 3B, 2 RBI, HBP (.273)Tyler Schlaffer: 5 IP, 4 H, R, BB, 6 K (4.65)Jose Miguel Gonzalez: 2.2 IP, H, R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 4 K (6-0, 3.76)Adam Laskey: 1.1 IP, H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K (S, 4, 0.00)

ACL

Cubs 6, Athletics 2

DSL

Cubs Red 9, Cubs Blue 1

It was June 1982. My father had died less than two months earlier, at the tender age of fifty-seven. My thirtieth birthday was on the eleventh of the month. I was having dinner that night with my mother and my youngest brother. There wasn’t much of a celebration. We were sad over someone who should have been there with us.

A week later was Father’s Day. It was the first without my dad. I can’t remember what we did that day. I only know it was painful because of my family’s loss.

That’s how I continued to celebrate Father’s Day for the rest of the decade. Throughout the rest of the 1980s, the third Sunday in June was just another day.

That changed early in the following decade. My oldest daughter was born in September of 1990. Her sister followed less than two years later. While it took them some time to understand the day’s meaning, their arrival gave me a reason to celebrate the day once again.

It’s now been more than thirty years since I started celebrating Father’s Day as a father. Almost two years ago my youngest made me a grandfather. Another great reason to celebrate. Grandfathers get to celebrate Father’s Day, right? DAMN, RIGHT!!! Plus, there’s another one on the way this fall.

When I look at everything I have just written, my thoughts are how did I get so lucky? How is it I’m so blessed? What a difference life is compared to that June day in 1982.

So, while I’ll spend some time today remembering and missing my own father, the focus will be on my current life and all the good things that are here…and all the good things to come. There’s room in my heart for both.

Related Post: Happy Father’s Day to my daughters

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Another beer week, another batch of trivia at your favorite brewers. We do have a new release from Seipp’s Brewing, and things may soon ramp up for the weekend before Independence Day.

Wednesday, June 22

Thursday, June 23

Dearest daughter,

SAGE will let you know when she needs to go OUT – she does a little dance, prances around and her tail thumps against the wall as if a drummer is banging on a bass drum. 

Usually, right after she gets up, she’ll walk to you so you that she knows you’ve noticed her, and then she does her little dance/drum solo.  She loves to have someone pet her right after she gets up.  She suffers from anxiety issues and wants to know that whoever she’s staying with, loves her. 

If she doesn’t come in when you call her, that’s okay, let her stay out for a few more minutes – even in the heat.  But if she doesn’t come in on the 2nd call, put her leash on her and she’ll follow you in – she’s SO SWEET – she never resists and is never aggressive. 

You can give her a handful of the kibble I brought to be served in the morning when she gets up.  And sometimes she sleeps in till 9:30.   

She gets fed dinner at 5:00 PM – I make them chicken, baked potatoes, rice & kibble, but there is no problem with a can of dog food and a handful of kibbles – which I brought to you.  You’ll find treats also in the bag along with her bowl.  I always give her a treat when she comes in from the outside.  AND if you feed your pups – KEEP THEIR FOOD SAFE FROM SAGE.  SAGE will eat EVERYTHING & ANYTHING. 

And I usually give her a treat in the afternoon…. but don’t worry about that. 

Let her out at night just before everyone goes to bed – (I brought her bed). 

Her VET is KIM XXXXXXX at 21 S. Park Blvd, Glen Ellyn, IL – 630-469-7400

SAGE loves to be around people and dogs – so – I’m hoping she will GO DO GOOD with your dogs: Ellie, Cocoa, and Peanut. 

Thanks for watching SAGE – love dad