Daily Dirt: It’s time to listen to Bob (Dylan, that is)… the times, they are still a changing

Daily Dirt for Oct. 17, 2021
The times, they are a changing. That’s what Bob Dylan once told us. And Bob is still correct, as you’ll see in today’s three thoughts for Vol. 99 of the Daily Dirt:

1. The next time you are sitting in your favorite recliner — with a beverage close at hand, of course — consider how much the world has changed in recent years. Here are a few things off the top of my rather massive head that immediately come to mind:

• How many workers will never — or at least rarely — again go “into the office” to go to work? If there was one good thing to emerge from the pandemic, this is probably it. Home office set-ups are here to stay, and will likely grow exponentially in the coming years.
• How many people to do you know who actually still have a landline phone in their home? — Recent numbers indicate at least 77 percent of Americans own a smartphone, a figure that will continue to climb. It wasn’t that many years ago they idea of having a tiny computer in your pocket would have been considered a concept found only in a sci-fi movie.
• Remember when the amount of TV networks could have been counted on one hand? Now? Holy cow, I couldn’t even make an accurate guess on how many there are. And this number will only continue to grow in the coming years.
• Remember when wearing a suit — or least a shirt and tie — was mandatory for most office work? If you still go to an office (read the first item again), I’m guessing a polo shirt and casual slacks are the norm these days in the large majority of businesses that still requite in-house staffing.
• Who would have ever imagined — even 15 to 20 years ago — that the internet would have killed off most shopping malls and so many other in-person outlets?
• That so much of our personal contacts — be it actual conversation or old-fashioned phone calls — would be replaced by texting.
• That magazines, and even books, would be replaced by digital mediums. For those who yearn for the return of a Waldens or Barnes and Noble to every every shopping center I’m afraid those times are gone for good.
• That virtually everyone would own a portable computer — a.k.a. laptop — and be able to carry their entire world with them wherever they go.
• The traditional four-door sedan would go the way of the dinosaur and about 99 percent of drivers on the road (or so it seems) would be behind the wheel in one kind of SUV or another.

I’m sure you have a dozen or more thoughts you could add to this list, and I’m sure I will have more additions. We’ll be coming back to this topic at a future date. 

2. I don’t think it will take fired Cardinals manager Mike Shildt long to land another job, possibly with the San Diego Padres. 

Let’s be honest, Shildt’s removal was a major surprise after he spearheaded the team’s 38-20 finish that included a 17-game winning streak. “Philosophical differences” was given as the reason for Shildt’s dismissal. I’m thinking this is a move the Cardinals will likely come to regret.– By the way, the Cardinals had just two starting pitchers throw more than 100 innings this season, and one was the amazing Adam Wainwright who worked 206.1 and posted a 17-7 record. And don’t forget, Wainwright recently turned 40 years old. The other was Kwang Hyun Kim (7-7, 3.46) at 106.2, who threw just 9 innings after Aug. 29 and is 33 years old.

3. In case you were wondering, the new James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” was made on the strength of a massive $250 million production budget. Add to that more than $100 million in marketing.

The movie ends Daniel Craig’s marvelous 15-year career as the world’s favorite secret agent and is expected to set all sorts of attendance and earnings records by the time its run has finished. Whatever the final numbers wind up, just think what they might have been minus a pandemic.

Steve Fact O’ The Day
One of Steve’s best friends when he lived in Ohio was former American League Cy Young Award winner Dean Chance. Chance, who was from West Salem, Ohio, about 10 miles north of where Steve was born and raised (Ashland, Ohio), was a country boy at heart and quite the connoisseur of Chinese food. Dean and Steve shared many smorgasbords at the Peking Restaurant in Ashland.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Steve also covered Tinker, to Evers, to Chance.