By TEDDY ALLEN/Designated Writers

COVID ISLAND — You will notice from the dateline that we are here, stranded, where you can’t even go into the water, much less the restaurant, the school house, or, for our purposes here today, the ballyard.

Major League Baseball on Monday postponed a four-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers after seven Cardinals players and six staff members tested positive for the novel coronavirus, not to be confused with the short story coronavirus.

St. Louis, Miami, and Philadelphia now have the most games to make up, and you wonder if some club will end the 60-game season 40-20 and another will finish at 18-12, or 12-25. Either way, it’s mathematically a humdinger for baseball, which I think just wants to get Los Angeles and the Yankees to the postseason, and then all will be accomplished that MLB had hoped for.

This baseball shortage all the way around is a bear, I know, especially for those who are part of a team that, right now, is not an on-the-field team. And while this won’t help a lot, you’re going to make it. We did in 1994. That’s when MLB went on strike and the $224 plane ticket to Chicago in my name was rendered practically useless.

That ticket was the golden pass to our annual Dog Days of Baseball Extravaganza. Chicago was home plate.

“Was” is the operative word there.

The few years before, we’d started Dog Days with just four of us with games in Chicago at Wrigley and then Comiskey. A humble beginning, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

It grew. We soon had guys coming in from all points. Sometimes not all of us knew the guy, but we soon did and were bonded by Dog Days. We were even on the cover of the USA Today one spring, I kid you not, and that was back when being on the cover of USA Today meant something.

The next year, I was the planner and we’d expanded to eight or 10 guys, some in for the full ride, some for a game or three. We started in Shea, spent the night in Cooperstown, then back to Boston and Philly and Baltimore, then returned to New York for a getaway day game at The Stadium.

In 1994, in the spring, JJ had chiseled out a couple of potential trips and Dog Dayers across the land, panting, settled on one. Ramz, our Dog Days Logistics Coordinator based in St. Louis, secured cheap fares and clean hotels.

All that work…

Giggles from St. Paul was going. Weiss from New Orleans was going. Touchdown Baker was going, and Lefty from Little Rock and Taylor B. from Virginia.

Even Larance, the only man ever fired from Dog Days, was going, finally. (Long story. Involved pregnancy and more angst than you can shake a Louisville Slugger at. Tears were shed.)

And then, in 1994, the players went on strike. Not saying I blame them. I am saying Major League Baseball cancelled a perfectly good Dog Days. Following is what we’d planned.

SATURDAY: Meet in the Windy City and pound down the cheeseburgers and milkshakes at Ed Debevic’s restaurant. See the Twins and White Sox that night in Comiskey. Look for those Big Shoulders that Sandburg wrote about. (Carl, not Ryne.)

SUNDAY: Fly for $52 to Detroit and watch the Angels and Tigers in Tiger Stadium. Go immediately to a safe hotel. (This was to have been the cowbell tilt for me, an afternoon game in Tiger Stadium. I was physically sick about it.)

MONDAY: Travel Day. Get to Windsor (which was at the time in Canada and I believe still is) via buses and trams, then board a train for Toronto. Ramz had secured a $27 special coach rate and everything. Arrive in Toronto after the four-hour train trip, look for moose, eat backbacon, enjoy life in a foreign country.

TUESDAY: “The Kid” and Seattle vs. Toronto in Skydome. I had checked, and Blue Jays management was going to let us turn that little crank that makes Skydome’s roof open and close. Hard to bear…

WEDNESDAY: Ride in a rented van from Toronto to Cleveland, back in the USA. Tell Cleveland jokes. A’s vs. Indians in new Jacobs Field.

THURSDAY: A $47 flight back to Chicago for a 1 o’clock Red Sox-White Sox game. Return home that evening, begin planning Dog Days 1995.

It was supposed to happen that way. Didn’t. But the sun kept coming up, and every time it did I could see that worthless $224 plane ticket.

But we made it. You will too. It hurts, and it’ll hurt for a while, like when you catch a tight one on on the elbow. But eventually it’ll go away, at least almost, and ball will be back.

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Ran originally in the August 2, 2020 Sunday editions of The Times and The News-Star

TEDDY ALLEN/Designated Writers

There are 213,063 miles under her hood.

We’ve shared life’s curves and straightaways, valleys and hilltops, sometimes cruising, but mostly hard, set-your-chin-to-the-wind driving.

That’s a lot of miles to spend together.

And now it’s time to say goodbye.

Breaking up is hard to do, but not this go ’round. We both knew.

It’s time.

She won’t miss me. I kept her in all the best stuff when we’re talking oil changes and tire rotations. But the interior had begun to look like a rock star’s hotel room after an all-night party.

Funny what you find in your car when it’s time to part ways. A parking stub from the Heart of Dallas Bowl—in 2014. I took a friend to the doctor and found the DVD of his test results—from 2016. A picture book from the Masters Golf Tournament—in 2017.

A Ray Stevens CD and several others, although the CD player hasn’t worked since Obama was president—the first time.

It’s really a shame how much I let the interior turn into a posterior. Pushed her hard and cleaned her seldom. So no, she won’t miss me a lick. Besides, I have more miles on me than she has on her, and let’s face it, she’s got a lot of miles.

I inherited her from my spousal unit and good gracious, was I proud. What model was she, you ask? (The car, not the spousal unit.) She was a 2009 Paid4, my very favorite model. Every mile felt like a freebie.

She’s not what I would have chosen (and again, we’re talking about the car and not the spousal unit), but the price was right and she was dependable as a pencil. In a weird, sadistic sort of way, we were meant for each other.

We’ve been north to Wichita, Kansas, south many times to New Orleans, west to Dallas/Fort Worth two dozen times at least, and east to Shelby, North Carolina. And many points in between.

She’s been to the Redneck Riviera—although not recently, sad to say—and to Lake View, South Carolina where I drove her around town on the same roads I used to ride my bike and drive a red Farmall tractor.

No telling how many times she’s heard me say, “If we can just get to Atlanta” and then “If we can just get to Birmingham” and then “If we can just get to Meridian” and on like that until you hit the Louisiana state line and feel you have a fightin’ man’s chance of actually making it home, which you finally do, rear end shredded and nerves frayed, but home nonetheless, and it was her who did the heavy lifting when you were actually just sort of along for the ride.

She never gave me any trouble. I could write about the F-150s and Chevy Silverados and Fairlanes and Geo Prisms I have known, about a Jeep Wrangler and a Cherokee, a Sentra and an Accord, even a VW Jetta and Bug. I liked them all better than my 2009 Paid4. But none were more faithful.

The idea now? Kiss her right square on the radiator, pat her on the master cylinder, and tell her to keep on truckin’. Just without me.

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