The Yankees collapse is complete, for now. A rip-roaring start to the DNC. And a Paralympic table tennis shot you won’t believe

I’m not really a good Yankees fan anymore. Haven’t been one for years; as I’ve said many times, I just don’t follow baseball on a day-to-day basis.

But man, watching the Bombers collapse over the last month has been pretty shocking. And seeing the Baltimore Orioles, who were last relevant when Jeffrey Maier was sitting in the Yankee Stadium bleachers, rise up to become a real rival has been pretty amazing as well.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the Yankees had a double-digit lead in the American League East 47 days ago. Tuesday night, it was down to zero. As in, the Yankees and Orioles were tied for first.

The Yanks aren’t hitting, the pitching hasn’t been near good enough, and injuries are a problem, too. Meanwhile, Baltimore is playing like a hungry team under a really good manager (Buck Showalter) and I can only imagine how nuts Camden Yards will be this weekend, when the Yankees and O’s hook up for a four-game series.

As a Yankee fan, I’m definitely worried that Bobby Valentine’s seemingly crazy July prediction (“the Yankees can be caught,” Bobby V said then) has come true.
Still, kind of neat for baseball to see the O’s back in business again.

**Well that sure was a hell of a start to the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night. Great speeches all around, I thought, especially by Deval Patrick (above), who clearly has some fire in his belly. Some quick-hit musings:

– Great keynote speech by Julian Castro (really interesting piece by Charlie Pierce on Castro vs. Rubio here). Guy has a bright future, brighter than just being the mayor of San Antonio. But I’m only half-joking when I wonder if voters in Florida would ever vote for a guy named Castro.

– Happy to see all the speakers hammer home the point that the auto industry in this country is no longer on life support. But sadly, my fiancee and I both wondered whether there are even that many people employed in the auto industry to impact a national election anymore.

– Michelle Obama — wow. What a composed, beautiful speech she gave, from the heart and filled with wonderful personal details about her life with Barack (my favorite line was when she discussed the family sitting around the dinner table, “strategizing about middle school friendships.”)

– Going to be a very interesting 2016 Democratic primary. I’ve loved Martin O’Malley for a long time now (he was the model for Carcetti’s character on “The Wire”) and I think he’ll be in it in ’16. Andrew Cuomo will be running. Biden will probably run again. Too soon for Castro, maybe Hillary gets back in? Will be very interesting.
– Can’t wait to hear what Bubba Clinton says tonite. And Tebow knows Joe Biden could say just about anything.

**Finally, the Paralympics don’t get much attention every four years, but there are plenty of amazing athletes competing in London right now. Here’s one great moment that I saw on Twitter this week, from British table tennis player David Wetherill.

How did he do that?

In praise of Charlie Crist. And a mascot dancing accident

So every now and again I’m going to turn this little space over to a different voice, just for variety’s sake. Also, I sometimes feel lazy. Today, our guest blogger is the person whose face I always take glasses off of at night, after she has fallen asleep with them on (never figured out how a person can do that).

It’s about an issue near and dear to my wife’s heart: The veto of Senate Bill 6 here in Florida. This was a huge news story down here for weeks.

Take it way, Julie Lewis …

This past week, the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, vetoed a very damaging and potentially devastating education bill known as “Senate Bill 6.”

This bill proposed many, many changes to the current education system in Florida. Among these changes were the end of tenure for experienced teachers, the institution of merit pay based on test scores, evaluations for teachers that would be based 50% on a single test score, and the removal of a teacher’s certification if students in her class did not make yet-to-be defined learning gains 4 out of 5 years.

If a teacher did show learning gains, that teacher would be removed from her current school and placed into a school that did not show learning gains. And then have her certification removed if she did not show the same results as in her prior school. This bill did not take into account, at any point, communities, administration, the home life of a child, the class make-up, students who had any type of learning or medical disability or the economic status of the students.

This bill would have also eliminated paying teachers based on years of experience or advanced degrees. The legislature was determined to push this bill though without any input from teachers, parents, school boards or anyone else involved with education. For two weeks, regardless of party affiliation, over 20,000 people emailed the governor to ask him to veto this bill. He received over 18,000 phone calls and several thousand hand-written letters. I called, wrote, attended rallies and worked with a ball of lead sitting in my stomach as I contemplated how fast I would be able to move out of state and how long it would be before I was faced with the same asinine legislation in another state.

The state of Florida was deeply divided over this and had teachers already looking for work in other states. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that I am NOT a republican. (note from her husband: Yeah, she’s definitely not a Republican. If she were, we probably never would’ve ended up together).

I never voted for Charlie Crist and I never will, even as he runs for Senate against Marco Rubio (endorsed by the Tea Party people). But I have to say that this week, he earned a little of my respect.

He broke from the GOP and vetoed this bill because, among other reasons, he stated that this bill had been pushed through so quickly that there had been no time to listen to the people who were being affected. He recognized that there are factors other than the teacher which influence test scores and that test scores were not the be-all end-all to judging teachers. He stood in the face of what had become a witch-hunt and slapped back at it.

So Charlie, although I have never agreed with your politics, and I won’t ever vote for you, you listened to your constituents, you tried to hear what they had to say, and you rejected something which would have indelibly hurt that state of Florida and its students. Thanks. Now I can get back to teaching.

My take: It was a politically desperate move by Crist, since he’s going to run as an independent in the Senate race. But it was still the right thing to do.

And, since you need a laugh on a Sunday, check out this poor mascot’s accident at a Reno Aces game Wednesday night: (Don’t worry, Wolfie turned out to be OK).