521. System Day Challenge 2026: What’s in Your Wheelhouse?
SYSTEM DAY CHALLENGE 2026: What’s in Your Wheelhouse? It’s hotter than hell (literally) in Texas right now, but even though the MLB World Series doesn’t begin until the last week of October this year, about now I start dreaming about baseball. This has to do with my elementary school days. In 1968, the series began on October 2nd. Before I get to that playoff between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals, I have to back up three years. I was playing baseball on a school team for the first time in my life. The sun has just set and my 3rd grade coach is yelling at me for being such a lousy player. He’d ratcheted me down and down until left field was the only place left for me. I didn’t pee my pants but it was distinctly unpleasant. My dad was telling the coach I was just a kid and winding up for the “am I going to have to bust you in the nose?” talk with the coach. The coach, surprisingly, did shut up. All that didn’t faze me. By that time everyone in the world knew I was a capital-L Loser where baseball was concerned. No, what fazed me was sitting in the back of the station wagon with my teammates (we won that game, incidentally) as we all got brain freeze sucking down victory Dairy Queen Mr. Misty iced slushy drinks. The other guys didn’t razz me at all. I imagine I was so numb I was simply invisible. When I got home, I walked away from participating in team sports forever. Sad story, right? Well, don't call the waaambulance. There is a sorta-kinda happy ending that leads to this year’s System Day Challenge. Sparky Anderson, reading with his Peterson XL264, player, coach & manager, who led the Cincinnati Reds (1976 & 1976) and the Detroit Tigers (1984) to World Series championships. Back to the 1968 World Series. Kids then weren’t given standardized tests. They ate real food made by real women on real stoves in real cafeteria kitchens. Many days our classes our learning was made brighter just by the wonderful smells wafting from the cafeteria all morning—aromas so good our town had a school district cookbook printed up. But I digress. School began later and ended earlier than nowadays, running from after Labor Day to mid-May. Most of us in 6th grade were reading on what is now considered a high school level. Most comic books had about 900-1000 words on a page (now that's dropped to around 70). Interestingly, there was always time for the World Series. When the game started, the television was wheeled out and that was our instruction for the day. This means something. Despite the bully I had for a 3rd grade coach, I kept on playing neighborhood ball with my friends in our front yard, and my dad sometimes took me to the fairgrounds to see the Tulsa Oilers, who remain my favorite team (1919-1976).*…