Tim Ellsworth

From FOX News:

The wife of an Alabama minister missing for more than four months has been located by police unharmed and working under an alias at a fast-food restaurant in New York state, authorities said Monday.

Louisiana police located Mary Byrne Smith alive and well in New York state on Friday. The 30-year-old kindergarten teacher had been working under an assumed name at a fast-food restaurant.

“We know it’s her,” Bossier City Police Chief Mike Halphen said at a press conference Monday. “She did not want us to disclose the reasons why she left, and she did not want us to disclose where she is living.”

Weird stuff.

From Reuters:

A New York man has been charged with beating his mother to death with a barbell after losing his temper while watching a baseball game on television.

Talk about taking a game too seriously. What a headcase.

The family of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock has dropped a wrongful death lawsuit against Mike Shannon’s restaurant and others.

Glad to see they came to their senses. Better late than never, I guess.

Hat tip: misawa

I’ve gotten into the practice of doing these “recommend a book” posts every three months or so, and have found them immensely helpful. It’s time for another one.

I read Voddie Baucham’s “Family Driven Faith” and thought it was excellent. Read Ray Van Neste’s review of it here. It’s a quick read, and you can finish it in two or three days.

I also recently finished “How Now Shall We Live?” by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, and am just about done with Pearcey’s “Total Truth.” I’d classify this duo of books as revolutionary to my thinking about Christianity and worldview issues. Unlike the Baucham book, however, these are going to take a much larger time commitment — but it will be time well spent.

I just ordered “While Europe Slept,” by Bruce Bawer — one that I’ve been planning to read for a few months. I’m expecting good things from it.

So, what book or books have you read in recent weeks that you’d recommend to others? Or, maybe you’ve read one that you’d encourage us to avoid. Here’s your chance.

PGA Tour golfer Jay Williamson got into an argument with his caddie in the middle of the first round of the Canadian Open and fired him on the spot. He then selected a replacement from the fans watching the tournament.

From “More Tales from the Dugout: More of the Greatest True Baseball Stories of All Time,” by Mike Shannon:

Besides offering its fans a good brand of baseball at very affordable ticket prices, the Frontier League has always been peopled by its share of characters, none more interesting than Max McLeary, who umpires in the league despite having lost an eye in an accident. A one-eyed umpire sounds like a joke, and McLeary has certainly heard them all (and then some) about him and his brethren in blue having bad eyesight, like “Hey, ump, you’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other one!” Yet McLeary tries to use his handicap to his advantage by outworking, outpreparing, and outhustling everybody else, and he is actually regarded as one of the very best arbiters in the league. He also has a great sense of humor and loves to tell stories about his glass eye that show he doesn’t take himself and his unique predicament too seriously. His best story is the one called “The Mask Story.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Colts’ Glenn retires from NFL

Josh Hamilton: In his own words

MBU hires Farrell as men’s basketball coach

Brad Locke: The Chinese dragon

Tim Ellsworth: Bonds: An unjust pursuit

Tim Challies reviews “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.

All natural and steroid-free.

Barry Bonds is on the cusp of breaking the most revered, most hallowed record in all of sports. And outside of the hometown loyalists in San Francisco, a lot of sports fans couldn’t care less.

Oh, we see the obligatory stories about the chase for Hank Aaron in the media. We see ESPN break in to show every Bonds at-bat. We hear the talk show hosts discussing the situation on the radio.

But even baseball commissioner Bud Selig couldn’t make up his mind until recently about whether he’d be on hand when Bonds surpasses Hammerin’ Hank. The apathy shown by Selig, and by so many baseball fans, is indeed stunning.

Read the rest of my column at BP Sports.

Washington Nationals pitcher John Lannan got ejected from his major league debut after plunking Chase Utley and Ryan Howard consecutively.

Welcome to the big leagues, kid.

One of my former students, Jordan Gray, 20, died in a car accident yesterday morning. My deepest sympathies to his family and friends in McLeansboro. You are all in my prayers.

Josh Harris writes about a family in his church who lost their 3-year-old son Micah to a brain tumor. Harris quotes Charles Spurgeon:

Suppose you are a gardener employed by another. It is not your garden, but you are called upon to tend it. You come one morning into the garden, and you find that the best rose has been taken away. You are angry. You go to your fellow servants and charge them with having taken the rose. They declare that they had nothing to do with it, and one says, “I saw the master walking here this morning; I think he took it.” Is the gardener angry then? No, at once he says, “I am happy that my rose should have been so fair as to attract the attention of the master. It is his own. He has taken it, let him do what seems good.”

It is even so with your friends. They wither not by chance. The grave is not filled by accident. men die according to God’s will. Your child is gone, but the Master took it. Your husband is gone, your wife is buried—the Master took them. Thank him that he let you have the pleasure of caring for them and tending them while they were here. And thank him that as he gave, he himself has taken away.

Hat tip: Justin Taylor

Curt Schilling thinks Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, among others, are guilty of using steroids, and I think he’s got a good argument.

“If I wrote a book about Bob Costas and in that book I wrote about Bob Costas’ girlfriend being on the road, and Bob Costas giving that girlfriend card show money and I outlined your daily steroid regimen, I’ve got to believe your first line of defense is to sue my [butt] off,” Schilling said.

“It goes to the Mark McGwire thing in Congress. I mean, I’m a huge Mark McGwire fan. But I just always thought it was very simple: If you did something and someone asks you if you did it and you didn’t do it, you say no. Any other answer than no is some form of yes, isn’t it?”

Schilling said that the statistics from confirmed steroid users like Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro should be wiped from the books.

Sports Illustrated has produced an interesting collection of articles about the topic of cheating in sports. In addition to a couple of broad articles addressing cheating in general, they have articles for every major sport about the types of cheating that take place. Look in the box entitled “Cheating” to see the entire collection of links.