How do you handle the heat?

This has been the hottest week of the year in Northeast Florida.

It’s one thing for forecasters to say that. It’s another to walk outside and feel the heat rain down on you. As comfortable as the air conditioning was Wednesday, leaving it to volunteer downtown at the City Rescue Mission is a very good way to insert some humility with the humidity.

Initially, I was uncomfortable in my role of wiping down tables when people were finished eating. The room had a capacity of 112. In the 90 minutes we were there, there were not too many empty seats.

As wave after wave trudged in to gobble up a meal of tuna casserole, green beans, carrots and bread I started to observe, as well as feel guilty for my initial reticence. Frequently, Jacksonville’s less fortunate would walk right in front of me as they collected their salad and peaches at the other end of the room.

Standing against the glass waiting for people to finish their meal gave me time to think. 

The most sobering moment was watching a young black man, who looked to be in his 20s, walk in, pump his hands under the hand sanitizer and continue on to receive his food. The fact he didn’t break stride when cleaning his hands is what stuck with me. That one motion said that he has visited City Rescue Mission so many times that he knew exactly where it was without looking and without wasting movement.

That one motion humbled me. I didn’t know his name, nor did I ever strike up a conversation with him. But, from then on when I cleaned a table, I made a habit of saying hello, asking people how their day was and treating them like the people they are.

Of course there were some quizzical looks, like when I couldn’t help by observe the gentleman who walked into the City Rescue Mission in a Boston Bruins hat, T-shirt and black jacket. Rather than judging, my heart hoped that he at least came from a cool place on an afternoon where temperatures were in the mid-90s with an ever-increasing humidity.

Every day, the City Rescue Mission feeds about 400 people. Of the people who ate meals Wednesday about 75 percent of them were men. Considering 40 percent of homeless men have served in the military and Jacksonville is a military community, it’s fair to assume that many of the men served by the City Rescue Mission are veterans. 

Though the number of homeless people is dwindling, there are still hundreds of thousands of people in the richest country in the world who do not have a consistent place to live. Jacksonville has approximately 3,000 homeless people. More than 630,000 people in America are homeless. That is taking every resident of Tampa and Orlando and leaving them on the street—along with 35,000 others.

In a perfect world, I would never have told anyone about my trip to the City Rescue Mission. To me, it cheapens an act of kindness by broadcasting it. But, Wednesday’s volunteerism convicted me. I have had ample opportunities and blessings in my life, even in this time of transition.

Homeless statistics can be cold and detached things. Seeing the warmth of the people who embody those numbers is a sobering cup of ice water on a sweltering summer afternoon.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

Would you be tempted to cheat?

Major League Baseball suspended New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez for 211 games Monday. The 38-year old slugger was supposed to be the sport’s golden boy when he bludgeoned baseballs as a 20-year old shortstop for the Seattle Mariners in 1996.

Instead, he is suspended for his role in a performance-enhancing drugs scandal that has enveloped the game for the last 15 summers.

People, and the sports media, can pretend to be a moral authority and decry Rodriguez for combining his prodigious talents with PEDs. But they should ask themselves this question: would you take a shortcut if the payoff was a few hundred million dollars?

Rodriguez has the highest paid baseball player for each of the last 13 seasons. He has earned more than $300 million in salary during his career. If he indeed serves his suspension, which will encapsulate the entire 2014 season, Rodriguez will forfeit his $25 million salary. Nevertheless, according to multiple media reports, he is owed another $61 million dollars after the 2014 season.

Friday, the same night Rodriguez told the press he believed the Yankees and Major League Baseball were conspiring to keep him off the field, the U.S. Department of Labor released its jobs figures for July. Most of the new jobs created were either part-time or low wage positions that would leave someone hovering around the poverty line. On the surface, neither seems to be related. But, if you think about it a lot of those who are underemployed would like a position that offered financial stability. If someone offered them that stability—but told them they had to take an ethical shortcut—to get the position, they would probably take it.

Rodriguez did something similar, take a shortcut to enhance his career prospects, except there were many millions more at stake.

Baseball didn’t have an issue with the Steroid Era until a reporter exposed the Emperor of American Sports was not wearing clothes. When Associated Press sports writer Steve Wilstein spotted androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker in August 1998 and reported on his findings he was vilified by the St. Louis media, as well as others around the country.

It took years for Wilstein, and to a lesser extent former outfielder Jose Canseco, to be vindicated for their claims about performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

(For context, Sammy Sosa drove in 158 runs, won the 1998 National League MVP award and helped the Chicago Cubs win 90 games. Few remember they were 12.5 games behind division winning Houston. St. Louis was a pedestrian 83-79 in 1998. In games, McGwire hit a home run, the Cardinals won 35 of them for a .593 winning percentage. Attendance that year jumped 3.5 percent, because the home run chase between the two syringe-filled sluggers captivated the sport.)

Through Sunday, MLB averaged 30,616 fans per game. Through the same number of home dates last year, the average attendance was 31,396. Neither figure tops the average attendance of the strike-shortened 1994 season when, on average, 31, 612 walked through the turnstiles at major league parks.

The point is, a lot of people made money off baseball players taking all sorts of substances. The sport recovered from the self-inflicted debacle of canceling the World Series because of a labor dispute, the owners made more money and player salaries skyrocketed.

Five years before Rodriguez signed a 10-year $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in 2001 there were eight teams in baseball that did not have a total payroll of $25 million.

Rodriguez took a gamble and got caught. Despite today’s media moralizing, it’s a temptation most of us would struggle to table.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb