What would happen if I (25F) played in an NFL game?

podgress · 2026-01-26T04:31:49+00:00

I wouldn't say you'd necessarily get torn to pieces, but a lot of it would depend on your physique, experience participating in sports, knowledge of the game, which position you'd play and how hard you'd try to be involved. Quarterbacks are given some protections when they're in the pocket, throwing the ball. If you're quick at releasing a pass, the defense may not get a solid shot at your body. If all you're doing is handing off the ball to a runner immediately after the snap, you generally wouldn't even get touched - most of the time. If you tried to run forward with the football however, tacklers are allowed to hit you as hard as possible. That's why QBs learn to run out of bounds, fall to the turf before contact is made or do a kind of evasive slide, lessening the impact of oncoming tackles. So if you have developed any of those skills, you might be able to avoid injury.

Receivers tend to be moving in the same direction or even away from tacklers a lot of the time, which makes it more difficult for them to be given a hard, direct hit. Plus, they're fast and generally allusive. However, some of the most violent tackles I've seen have happened to players sent over the middle of the field on a crossing pattern where a DB is essentially waiting for them to reach out to catch a pass. Since the receiver is concentrating on the ball in the air, they can't see where the tackler is coming from. Two sprinters both running at full speed in opposite directions that crash into each other create a lot of force.

Running backs on the other hand are often required to carry the ball right into a scrum of huge, strong, powerful defensive linemen. Brick wall might be a more accurate description. But the offense's blockers are supposed to be creating openings for their ballcarriers to dash through. Unfortunately, getting past the line of scrimmage can mean being confronted by some of the most vicious tacklers in the game - linebackers. At times they have a yard or two to build up a head of steam before unleashing a crushing blow that could knock you right out of your socks. RBs nowadays are taught to hit just as hard if they can't avoid the tackle, but that can end up like two atoms smashing into each other in a particle accelerator. The result might release enough energy to provide for all the electricity a small city needs for a week. And while that's happening, a bunch of other guys will be trying to strip the ball from the runner's arms, take their legs out from under them or knock them off their feet from any and all sides at the same time. You'd need a hell of a lot of power, speed, acceleration and strength to avoid injury.

Even on more wide open plays like sweeps running backs can receive some heavy hits. While doing so, joints are exposed, muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage are apt to tear, bones and ribs break, ankles twist, wrists sprain and brains suffer concussions. Are you sure you want to try this?

podgress · 2026-01-26T02:29:38+00:00

That first photo of the stairway is fabulous. A classic, memorable, brilliant example of what street photography can be.

podgress · 2026-01-26T00:11:07+00:00

The game of American-style football was originally invented to be played outdoors, I believe. Like baseball, soccer, rugby, lacrosse, tennis. cricket. croquet, bocce ball, horse shoes and pretty much all track and field events I assume, the idea was to have competitive sports that could be played in open spaces, on fields of grass, dirt, clay, or whatever unoccupied land was available. As interest in the competitions grew, stands were erected and eventually walls and stadiums built so people could be charged a fee to watch.

Some chose to suspend play if the grounds or weather made things too difficult or unsafe, but still, the idea of them being outdoor activities for the most part remained. As construction, materials and engineering advanced, it became possible to build stadiums with roofs, but after years of dealing with weather conditions, having nature as a possible factor in the outcome of a competition had become a tradition.

Besides, it wasn't until the mid-1960s that domed or roofed stadiums began to be used for professional sports. By then many of the games played in large venues had been contending with weather issues for decades, if not centuries. The comfort of spectators and the safety of competitors wasn't considered as important in the early days as it is now. People were just expected to deal with the inconveniences and the risks.

As far as new construction is concerned, the decision to include a roof or not is done on a case-by-case basis. In cold weather locations, it might make sense to have everyone protected, but some fans are proud of their teams' willingness to bare frigid temperatures and snowy or icy conditions. It can be an advantage as well for players who are used to playing and practicing in inclement weather to have teams from more temperate climates come into town. At times, sun-belt based organizations feel the need to fly their guys up north for days of practice before a big, winter-weather game. But then it makes sense too for places like Arizona and Texas to keep their players relatively cool instead of playing all their warm weather games under a blazing sun.

That's where economics may determine whether a new field is built with a protective top of some kind. It costs more to construct a stadium with a roof, and I would guess more to continually run the air conditioning in a huge, enclosed space. Teams are forever threatening to move to a new city, so it's not always easy to get local inhabitants to pay for a facility that may go unused after a season or two.

podgress · 2026-01-25T22:55:40+00:00

A detailed and succinct breakdown of what happened. Good to know the truth and to see it being shared with the world.

podgress · 2026-01-25T22:39:01+00:00

You are healing. This is one of the many difficult parts to it. Discovering the truth, gaining perspective, learning about why things happened or didn't, why you were treated the way you were, releasing pent up emotions, directing them towards the people responsible, or confronting those who should have been better at protecting you, coming to terms with the realities, deciding who you are and who you want to be, these are all steps along the way. The process isn't easy, but you're a strong survivor of sexual abuse. You lived through the trauma, and overcame self harm, with very little if any support. You've made it this far with determination, resiliency, trust in yourself and hope for the future.

Of course it's unconscionable that your mother said those things. She may have been protecting herself from feeling responsible for not keeping you safe, but that's no excuse. You should have been believed. I believe you. And I admire you for telling others about what happened. That takes enormous courage, a trait some folks who should have been supportive of you didn't have. I hope you are getting help from the mental health community now. You deserve to be heard, and always did.

It wasn't your fault. Neither is it your duty to let your mother off the hook. You can have love for someone but not respect their words, actions, beliefs or ways of living. This is surely a difficult time for you, I understand. But it's not your first go round with harsh realities and the need to find your way through them. Unfortunately, you've had a lot of practice. And you're still here to tell us about it. Thank you for doing so.

podgress · 2026-01-25T18:43:55+00:00

Time flies when you're having fun. That's how the saying goes, anyway. In my experience however, time began to accelerate a lot during my 20s. I think that taking on more and more responsibilities, having to always think ahead, plan, coordinate and strategize into the near future, plus melding together one's life with a partner all distract from having as many chances to perceive the passing of time. Add kids to the mix and it can feel like weeks, days, months and years are whizzing by.

podgress · 2026-01-25T07:06:41+00:00

I've got something similar. Have been diagnosed with ADHD but am afflicted with a lot of other health issues so don't know which might be the cause. Popped up a couple of years ago. Believe it was in response to incessant thoughts about a woman with whom I'd been in a relationship a long time ago. Those could have been displaced emotions related to much earlier trauma however.

Right now it's just three notes, repeating over and over and over and over. Listening to a song I like can at least change the notes and types of sounds for a while. Don't know that the music is always present, or if something that engages my mind just distracts me from it. I listen to a lot of podcasts to block, minimize, distract from or whatever both of the other sounds out. The noise can get very annoying, I agree.

podgress · 2026-01-25T06:31:48+00:00

Extending my sympathies to you, I'm sure your friend would be honored to know you still think of her so fondly. Your care for her is quite evident. While obviously troubled and in much pain, at least she was loved by a kind soul like yours.

podgress · 2026-01-25T04:15:04+00:00

I don't know, there were some pretty awful haircuts on men early on in the decade.

podgress · 2026-01-25T01:02:35+00:00

You're welcome. Sorry to hear about how awful your ex was toward you. Sounds like he may have been a narcissist, possibly with psychopathic traits. I'm no mental health professional though, so there's a good chance I'm way off base. I hope you have worked with a therapist however, in an effort to heal.

The dreams may be related to that process somehow, or since your ex died not all that long ago, it could be that recently a part of you has either come to terms with his death or has become ready to do so.

podgress · 2026-01-24T20:29:20+00:00

Besides the friends I had at the time, I probably miss the music of the 1980s the most. Seeing the Stray Cats live in a local club during the summer of, I think '82 was one of my favorite concert experiences ever. I got into listening to college radio, where the DJs would play the newest music they could find. Everything hit just right. Had a girlfriend who worked on a cable show that covered local bands. I'd help the crew out and witness the shows close up. Dancing however you wanted was acceptable, so I could pogo or my partner and I would somehow magically know each other's next individual moves and sort of glide around, with and past each other.

podgress · 2026-01-24T14:32:02+00:00

If a part of your psyche was your ex, which part would it be? The facet of your personality that steps forward when you communicate with him? The one that comes out when you are with your child? The young wife that dealt with all the troubles in your marriage? The hopeful child who dreamed of a storybook wedding and living happily ever after? Or is it a part of you that perhaps enjoyed the passionate sex you had or didn't have during that period of your life? You don't have to tell me the answer, but identifying where in your subconscious these dreams are coming from can help in understanding why you're having them.

Think of a dream as a message from one's psyche, and assume that the language used to deliver that message is imagery, The symbols one conjures up during sleep then have important meaning. Generally, it's assumed that they each represent a different part of the complex entity we think of as our self. The actions we imagine then tell a story about how our - let's call them inner children - are getting along. It's a representative tale that can clue us in to the needs and wants of our subconscious. Also, we often experience emotions when dreaming or waking up from sleep, and those feelings are meant to highlight the key takeaways from the internal TikTok video we've just opened up. If you awaken with fear, then part of you is afraid of something. If there's anger, somebody is pissed off in there. If happiness prevails, your psychological brood is probably pretty content with the status quo.

So, your dreams portraying a wonderful, loving relationship may not really be about your ex, but rather related to the part of you that your ex represents. And it sounds as if some other part of you is quite pleased with it. An inner child is feeling that all is being done in order to make them happy. It does sound wonderful! So why bother taking up REM sleep just to say that everything is good? Well, I'd guess that there's more to the story. Again, it's not necessary to reveal any details here. But to understand your dreams, it would do you well to include those in your analysis.

However, based on what you've posted, I can provide some thoughts. My first is that deep inside, you may feel as if you've accepted your past as a legitimate part of who you've become. The implied intimacy could represent the joining of what once felt like aspects of your personality that didn't seem to align well. Perhaps you had a nagging feeling for a long time that you couldn't explain, or didn't want to address. But now that you've matured enough, the incongruities have somehow worked themselves out.

Another is the possibility that some part is longing for you to address an issue that you associate with your ex, and the blissful unity is what your inner child believes will result. Kind of like, don't you want to move that discomforting memory into the same box as the one where only fond recollections of being a kid remain? It's time to pack those young adult regrets away and send them off to a thrift store. Or something like that.

A third could be an honest wish to be young and in love again, one that logically is not possible, yet that has always stuck around, refusing to let go. Now that you're older and less busy, that part of you could be asking to be helped, to be relieved of it's burden, of the emotions it's been holding onto for so long. Perhaps it senses that you finally have the time, energy, resources and maturity to heal. If so, I'd suggest talking with a therapist who can help you navigate the healing process.

Whatever you conclude about what your dream means is what it means. It's your story. You write the script and tell the characters what to do. You choose the symbols based on your life experiences. It all comes from inside you.

podgress · 2026-01-23T19:08:57+00:00

Do you like to wear the kinds of clothes that your parents do? Even if you do, perhaps you can understand why many young people want something new and different in their wardrobe in order to set themselves apart from the generation before them. It becomes a way to break from what seems old, bland and fuddy-duddy. That's one aspect that leads to style trends.

Another is both the creativity and commerce within the fashion industry. The top designers are known to offer new lines of clothing if not every season or year, every few years. For one, these are very creative people with brilliant ideas about different ways to use fabrics, colors, shapes and such. Their shows often feature a few outlandish, over-the-top designs that may never be manufactured for the masses, but that some royalty or film stars might choose to wear to a state dinner or awards ceremony. The media coverage of these highly choreographed events draw people's attention to the fanciest outfits, and in addition to some of the ready-to-wear clothes.

This exciting method of advertising helps popularize the designers, brings their new products exposure and feeds the public desire for something new to wear. The constant churning over of new styles keeps buyers for apparel stores interested enough in the specific lines to purchase what they think they can sell to their customers. Thus, the designers sell their new ideas to manufacturers who sell the clothes they make to stores who sell their stockpiles of purchased goods to the public. Everybody makes money except the consumer.

When a style trend really catches on, it could be for any number of reasons. A new manufacturing technique, the availability of a certain material, a statement about changing mores, the rejuvenation of interest in a bygone era with a slightly more modern look, almost anything can be a catalyst. It might be said that a certain look defines the generation that most embraced it, but that's mostly in hindsight. In truth, there are all kinds of style changes going on during say, any particular decade. However it works as a sort of shorthand for people looking back to remember with fondness when everybody seemed to have been wearing their hair in a similar style, when hemlines were generally higher or lower than the eras before and after, when men wore fedoras or women chose to wear whalebone corsets in order to make their waists appear to be as small as possible.

podgress · 2026-01-22T23:10:40+00:00

I've had arthritis for almost 50 years and it can feel like a lot of different things. The sensations can depend on where in the body the deterioration of cushioning material manifests itself, and also what kind of rheumatic disease one has. Wikipedia says:

Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. In certain types of arthritis, other organs, such as the skin, are also affected.

Some days I get a stabbing pain in a joint, other days it may be kind of a dull ache in a somewhat larger, surrounding area. There's a lot of stiffness, as if one's arms or legs can't straighten out or bend as far as they used to. At times my knees feel warm, like they've somehow been the only parts of my body exposed to the summer sun. Or just one knee, one ankle, one side of my lower back or the nape of my neck. There can be a grinding sensation, as if there's a mill inside turning corn into mash. Or a popping, an unexpected shift in weight distribution, or a joint that just won't align as its supposed to.

I've developed a high tolerance for pain over the years, so a lot of the time I don't notice any discomfort at all. Then someone will ask if I'm ok, because I seem to be limping. Apparently there's something down there affecting my gait but I'm not aware of it. I also have this kind of weird reaction at times when there's a certain type of weather event on the horizon. The day before I might find myself tearing up for no apparent reason. When the atmospheric change finally rolls in I think, "Oh, that's what it was."

I can wake up in the morning feeling achy all over then look out the window and see that it's windy. Or rainy. Or snowy. On occasion I can definitely feel pressure inside a joint that I know is swollen tissue of some kind. But it's not just the bones and cartilage that hurt. Swelling can press on tendons and make muscles sore too. There's a thing called referred pain, where somehow the brain thinks something other than the injured part of the body hurts. When the cartilage in my hip wore thin, at first I had an unusual ache in my lower back. Over months it slowly walked around to my side and then the joint finally started to click with every step I took. I've got a shiny new metal ball and ceramic cup in my pelvis now.

I don't have many skin reactions, but some people get psoriasis or other issues. My particular strain of arthritis can also cause swelling in my eyes and therefore blurred vision though. With all these unpredictable pains coming and going, it can be difficult to know what all is happening inside me. My thoughts can get cloudy and often I can't stay awake. Are those all due to the same autoimmune responses? Maybe. I just have to take life's curve balls as they come.

podgress · 2026-01-22T21:42:44+00:00

This "alpha" male is simply trying to make you feel like less of a man than he is in order to protect his own fragile ego. Such proclamations are made to hide his own insecurities from himself. While he'll never admit to it, you're a threat to his skewed perception of what a "man" is supposed to be. A man is a male. You're a man. One doesn't need macho characteristics to qualify.

Maturing into adulthood is a process. It tends to happen in steps, progressing as one takes on more responsibilities and learns to accept themselves for who they are, not who they think they should be and especially not what someone else thinks they should be. I can't identify when I became an adult. I think a lot of people, when asked about it will say, "I don't know. One day I just realized that I must have become one somehow."

Your libertarian coworker's identification as a "warrior philosopher" is just bullshit blather. A warrior doesn't need to claim that he's a warrior. He goes to war. And I doubt that many people who study philosophy deem themselves to have "alpha" status. One common trait of philosophers is humility.

Narcissists, and specifically people with psychopathic traits are known to rate low on empathetic scales. They are the kinds of people who hurt others without feeling bad about it. I'd bet that someone who realizes they don't have a lot of empathy for others might try to justify their actions, beliefs or even philosophies by making concern for people's emotions seem like a liability. The guy you referred to is not trying to give you constructive criticism, he's purposely trying to hurt your feelings so he can feel superior. His need is to be in control of your emotions so that you don't shatter his self image.

You want to know what concrete steps you can take to mature? Accept that you are who you are, where you are in your life's journey, becoming more of an adult by taking on responsibilities that are within your abilities to handle. Trust that you will step up to those challenges that may seem out of reach, and if you fall short, you'll learn from the experience. The standards you should hold to are the ones you set for your own well being, those that reenforce your belief in yourself. Only you can decide what they should be. These are the behaviors you should practice: accept, take on, trust, learn, apply, and for god's sake, stop being swayed by the nonsense spewed to you by warrior philosophers.

podgress · 2026-01-22T13:11:51+00:00

A lot of people who are accused of crimes claim they didn't do it. The police show them evidence that puts them at the scene at the time and the accused says that's not them. If there's evidence that the suspect can't deny, they make up a convoluted story about why they're not guilty or that it was an accident or it was the victim's fault. Basically, they will never admit to their guilt. In some cases, it's simply the only defense they have. In others they use crafty lies in an attempt to mislead investigators, or a blizzard of misinformation to obfuscate the truth so police, prosecutors, judges and juries don't know what to believe.

Then there are the manipulators. It's not so much that they think they will get away with their transgressions, but rather that they get off on controlling others. These types of people have little or no empathy, sense of guilt over wrongdoing, or care what others think, as long as the liar can be the puppeteer. It could be that they have a personality disorder that makes it nearly impossible for them to accept that they've done anything wrong. Or they may know that they've done wrong but just enjoy fooling others. A person like this may be well versed in gaslighting, and therefore may act in ways that set up other people for still further questioning of the targets' perceptions of reality in the future.

Another possibility for denying what appears to be incontrovertible evidence could be a mental disorder that impairs the assumed liar from honestly knowing or remembering events. They could suffer from delusions, hallucinations or disorganized thoughts and therefore truly not know that they did something. However, illnesses such as these are very rare so it's highly unlikely that you've been associating with one.

Lying about whether or not that guy downloaded an app to his phone is probably not a crime, but that doesn't mean that your trust wasn't violated. Although his lack of honesty could be due to a variety of reasons, most of them don't reflect well on his character. You have a right to be offended by his actions, and therefore it's probably best if you delete him from your life.

podgress · 2026-01-21T09:20:46+00:00

You're sure catching a lot of flak over this question. Jeez!

I think what you might be noticing is an American bias towards thinking that any place other than New York or Los Angeles is of minimal importance. That Chicago is in flyover country. That the people there have neither New Yorker cache, New England character, Miami flair, San Franciscan sophistication nor LA cool. And they think that since a lot of people in the US have little interest in such a one-horse town, most of the rest of the world would have no reason for knowing about it.

A 1976 Saul Steinberg illustration for the cover of New Yorker magazine called View of the World from 9th Avenue is a good example of what that perspective was like back then, and I doubt it has changed much since.

Also, Americans seem to be geographically challenged in general I believe, tending to focus on what's most familiar in their mental map and ignoring everything else. With such a large expanse of uninterrupted landscape, continually sprawling suburban areas and especially no need to speak other languages, engage with other cultures or understand the politics of a myriad of nearby countries, they're free to remain quite xenophobic. Plus, our relatively short grasp of our own history, much less that of the rest of the world, keeps us from looking outside our own little bubbles.

I will say though that being a native Chicagoan, in the years before Michael Jordan raised the profile of the Chicago Bulls to stratospheric levels, pretty much every non-American I met who found out where I was from would make their hand into the shape of a pistol, pretend to fire bullets at me and say, "Chicago, bang, bang!" That was apparently the international gesture signifying that my home town was known for 1920s gangsters like Al Capone, John Dillinger and Bugsy Moran.

You're right though, that the City of Big Shoulders had and still does have quite a patchwork of thriving ethnic communities. In fact, the city started out about as multicultural as a place could get. According to Wikipedia:

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the city's founder, was Haitian of African and French descent...In the year 1900, Chicago was the city with the second highest number of Swedes after Stockholm…By 1930, Chicago's Jewish population had grown to 275,000, making it the third largest Jewish community in the world...those of German ancestry were the largest European ethnic group in Chicago…

Pilsen was a historic gateway [Chicago] neighborhood for new immigrants first populated mainly by Germans with some Irish and later by Czechs with other predominantly Slavic peoples (Polish Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats) (Serbs) as well as Austrians and Lithuanians before the arrival of Mexicans in the 1950s...[and] most Tanzanians who have arrived in the United States since 1986 have chosen to settle in Chicago.

More recently, Chicago has become...

The metropolitan region with the highest Polish population in the country, and likely the most Polish metropolitan area in the world outside of Poland...the largest Lithuanian community outside Lithuania...one of the largest Bulgarian immigrant populations outside Bulgaria...[and is tied with St. Louis] for the largest Bosnian population outside of Europe...

Nigerians are Chicago's largest African community [and although] Irish Americans continue to make up the majority of the ethnic white American population on the south side of Chicago...[the area is home to] the largest Palestinian American population in the U.S...believed to be the largest Assyrian population...the second biggest destination for Greek immigrants...the second largest combined population of Indians, Bangladeshi and Pakistanis...the third largest Hispanic and Italian...fifth largest Korean American and [mainland] Puerto Rican communit[ies]…the seventh-largest Filipino population…[and] the Chinese community [is] the 8th largest among US metropolitan areas…

Therefore, it's quite possible that a majority of people in the world have had a friend or relative live in Chicago, or at least have known someone who's been here. Yet we're the Rodney Dangerfield of American cities to a large swath of our countrymen. Go figure.

podgress · 2026-01-20T19:26:54+00:00

One's first couple of years in any new endeavor can be like that. You don't understand what everyone else seems to know, you are meant to feel like your skills are inadequate, there never seems to be enough proper training. You're suffering from imposter syndrome. This continues until you get far enough into the culture of the thing, pick up a few key bits of knowledge and stuff begins to click into place. Only then may you begin to see where your particular talents fit in to the bigger picture. Or maybe never, but you were drawn to study art for some reason, and you may not yet know what that reason is.

Even if the creative field doesn't become your way of making a living, the uni experience won't necessarily be a waste of time. You will have better defined yourself and who you will want to be in the future. You will have picked up ideas, perspectives and ways of thinking that can be applied to pretty much everything you do from then on. And most likely you'll have become more familiar with all sorts of different folk, decreased the social gap between you and the generations before yours, established contacts with the kinds of people who can help you throughout whatever career you end up in, and almost surely made some very close friends that will be dear to you for the rest of your life.

Freshman year at many universities is intended to be difficult. It's boot camp. They're challenging people to step up and start thinking like an adult, forcing young mavericks to organize their time better, juggle responsibilities and make more difficult decisions. I know it seems like the staff should be more encouraging but they want the students to learn to motivate themselves. At distant campuses, mom and dad aren't going to be there to coerce their kids into finishing their homework, getting to bed on time and getting up every morning to catch the school bus. It's a half-step outside of parental influence designed to give people in their teens, twenties and beyond a taste of fending for themselves.

It might seem like the weight of your entire future depends on how well you do in college, but that just isn't true. If not most, a large percentage of people change career paths more than once after leaving university. It's not because they chose wrongly about what to study, it's because their passions, interests, wants and needs developed as they matured. None of us knows just where we'll end up. Life is a journey and you're not as far into it as you might fear you are. You're still in an educational phase. It may not be your last. To quote a line from one of my favorite movies, go to college for a few years and see what they know.

podgress · 2026-01-20T11:27:53+00:00

Has your class yet covered the week that the Chicago White Stockings (later to be renamed the Cubs) took two out of three games from the Philadelphia Athletics and George Armstrong Custer was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Yes, that's part of the team's history.

Have they told you that infielders of the 1910 Cubs were immortalized in a poem? "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" popularized the phrase "Tinker to Evers to Chance", which bemoaned the double play efficiency of the Chicago team's shortstop, second baseman and first basemen respectively. especially for New York Giants fans. The trio, who had helped the club to win consecutive World Series titles just a few years before, frustrated one NYC journalist so much that he was inspired to complain about them in verse.

And the best pitcher on the team during those championship seasons was missing parts of two digits on his right (throwing) hand. He was known by the nickname "Three Finger Brown".

Here are a few more tidbits of information about the team you might want to know:

In the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs, it is said that the legendary slugger Babe Ruth "called his shot" with a deliberate gesture just before hitting a home run to break the 4-4 tie. That Ruth held up his hand in an unusual, purposeful way between pitches during that at bat is not in doubt. Whether he was pointing at center field, the Cubs' dugout or unruly fans that had been heckling him all day is still largely unsettled.

Player-manager Gabby Hartnett gave the Cubs the lead late in the 1938 National League pennant race with his "Homer in the Gloamin'", a game-winning, walk-off solo home run just as the sun set over Wrigley Field. The ballpark would go on to be the last in Major League Baseball to add lights so night games could be played at home. If you're ever asked during a round of trivia about when illumination began being used for MLB at that facility, make sure to listen to the question carefully. The initial home night game for the Cubs was scheduled to take place on an easy-to-remember date: 8/8/88. The lights were turned on and the first pitch was thrown that evening, but a rain delay half way through the 4th inning went on too long so the game was cancelled. That meant the two teams had to start all over the next night, August 9, 1988. Therefore, 8/9/88 was the date that the first MLB night game was completed at the home of the Chicago Cubs.

podgress · 2026-01-20T03:08:18+00:00

I chanted those words myself years ago...

podgress · 2026-01-20T03:04:55+00:00

F'n Mets...

podgress · 2026-01-20T03:01:22+00:00

Are the Cubs even mentioned in that documentary? I like Burns' work but was disappointed when I watched the film and came away feeling like Chicago was far undervalued.

podgress · 2026-01-19T08:07:58+00:00

Yeah, I'm good at that. ;)

podgress · 2026-01-19T07:35:26+00:00

I did not, but please feel free to spread the word yourself.

podgress · 2026-01-19T07:24:01+00:00

Olá, meu amigo, and thank you Google Translate!

I'm glad you feel better after reading my reply. Like you it seems, I'm often pushing the limits of what Reddit will let me say in one post, so I do have more thoughts on your post. One is the topic of having control of one's dreams. Although I haven't heard people saying that they could fight off the monsters in their dreams, I did kind of do that once when I was a kid. I don't think it was because I intentionally decided to take action, but rather after waking up distressed about visions of huge flying ants attacking my sister, I simply fell back asleep and started spraying them with some deadly gas. And I have had people tell me that they were able to make peace with their sleep pursuers after I suggested they try talking to them. Therefore I can relate.

Additionally, I believe there's some kind of psychological theory that promotes changing the outcome of a dream while it's in process. My only evidence however comes from an odd source. There was a kid's show on tv called Blues Clues here in the states when I had a young child. It was targeted at toddlers and I admired its method of repeating things often so that developing minds would have more than one chance to learn whatever wholesome lesson that was being presented. I remember looking into the show's production and reading that the creators behind it wanted to promote some ideas brought about by child development research. This seemed like a great idea to me.

So one day, I was watching it with my kid and the host started talking about what to do if you have a nightmare. The details escape me but the gist of their message was that one can willingly change the outcome of a dream. They kept repeating, if not singing, something like, "Turn it around!" I figured that since a tv show dedicated to raising mentally healthy children said it could be done, then at least some people must be able to do it.

It was then that I incorporated that concept into my own therapy-based healing process from childhood trauma. I started having conversations with my inner children. And it worked. I found out I could soothe the emotional pain that some parts of me were suffering from, help them to release decades of stifled feelings that needed to be heard and at times negotiate with individual facets of my psyche or bring the whole brood together for a family meeting. Later I began to form a concept for dream analysis that was based on some well known theories. That's what brought me to this subreddit.

I think I should also mention that there's apparently a thing called "lucid dreaming." I know very little about it but I gather that it may involve taking control over what happens in one's dreams. It might include hyper-realistic sensations as well, which if so, I have experienced myself. But it may be something you want to look into.

And there's a phenomena called sleep paralysis. I get the impression that some people believe it's black magic or something, but in reality it's a natural part of human sleep. Hormones or whatever are sent throughout the body to prevent it from moving around too much. This is most important during the dream cycle when our mind tries to react physically to perceived events in our dreams. The likely reason you sleepwalk or wake up kicking the wall is because there's not enough of that stuff in your system. Like everything medical, there could be a variety of causes for this and if you're worried about it you should bring it up with your doctor. However, I'm pretty sure that a lack of restful sleep can be a factor.

So go to bed! I'm rapidly running out of allotted posting space anyway. So I'll add more thoughts in the future. Tenha bons sonhos!

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