The editorial on the successful Boston Red Sox season (“A Common Purpose,” Oct. 31) covered an appropriate and timely topic. However, I think that an essential element of the team’s success was not sufficiently discussed.
Unity of purpose is almost a given for a Major League Baseball team: all the teams want to win the World Series. What seems to have lifted the Red Sox was a genuine sense of teamwork, respect for each other and working together for the success of the team. Under the inspiring (and inspired) leadership of the manager, Alex Cora, team members were made to feel that their individual contribution was essential for the success of the team. This sense of team spirit — and the feeling that the success of the team depended on each player’s contribution — could be seen during the playoffs and World Series as different players stepped up in almost every game to provide the key hit, defensive play or outstanding pitching. Teammates going out to console Nathan Eovaldi after the crushing defeat in the third game of the World Series was remarkable.
I was wondering who would be the World Series MVP since several players were deserving. I would have given the MVP award to the entire team (including the manager), but this is not the way things are done.
I propose that it wasn’t mainly unity of purpose that turned a great team into one for the ages. It was mainly unity of spirit.
Alan Schnur
Lebanon
As you may already know, the Hartford Historical Society was not able to purchase the former Elks Building in Hartford Village, also known as the Horace Pease House, as anticipated due to insufficient funds received from donors and grants (“Historical Society Won’t Buy Lodge,” Nov. 2).
We want to thank everyone who contributed to our campaign for this purpose. Our present focus is to improve our current facility, with handicap accessibility being our first priority. Contributions enable us to do these extra things and are always greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Judy Barwood
White River Junction
The writer chairs the Long Range Planning Committee of the Hartford Historical Society.
As Hartford’s pool committee begins to wrap up its work, and I hope propose building an accessible and affordable swimming location, we must remember that Hartford residents still need a place to swim, and to learn how to swim.
For the past decade, the town has given an enormous amount of money to a private pool that many residents cannot afford to use. It is time to renegotiate that relationship and demand real public access to the Upper Valley Aquatic Club.
Griffin Shumway
Wilder
According to news reports, Robert Bowers walked into a Jewish house of worship and shot dead 11 people. Hours prior to the shooting, Bowers posted online that a Jewish group, which has worked for more than 100 years assisting refugees, “Likes to bring invaders in that kill our people.”
Days prior to that shooting, Cesar Sayoc Jr. allegedly sent pipe bombs to more than a score of President Donald Trump’s critics. Police said Sayoc was living out of a van plastered with right wing slogans, Trump pictures and a photograph of Hillary Clinton in crosshairs. (Clinton reportedly received a pipe bomb.) Online, Sayoc repeated Trump’s favorite memes — Islamist terrorism and illegal immigration.
Naturally, Trump denied any connection to the hate crimes of his followers. Trump may believe that. As in all other instances, Trump has again displayed a vacuous superficiality. He sees all human interaction as mere means to an end. “How will this benefit me?” is Trump’s only concern.
Urged by advisers, Trump spoke briefly about unity before attacking some of the same opponents who days earlier received pipe bombs. Trump then returned to scapegoating the media (CNN also received a pipe bomb), complaining that reporting on the murder and mayhem of his supporters was detracting from his campaign message. In fact, Trump has spent years attacking every recipient of Sayoc’s bombs.
What should one expect from a man who lies reflexively and who treats ridicule as intellectual argument? This as a man who offered to pay the legal bills of those who beat up his critics, a man who couldn’t distinguish between would-be Nazi storm troopers and counter-protesters.
This is a man who gins up fear, with no evidence, accusing thousands fleeing poverty and violence, women, children and the elderly among them, of harboring Middle Eastern terrorists. Which American immigrants were not fleeing poverty and violence? It’s an old story; they’re swarthy, they’re dirty, they’re dumb and they’re dangerous. For Trump it’s just rinse and repeat.
Although Trump didn’t pull the trigger, he identified the targets.
Len Ziefert
Enfield
Our current president demonstrates on a daily basis his lack of moral fitness for office. An ardent Donald Trump supporter allegedly mailed pipe bombs to people who have been repeatedly reviled by the president as “enemies.” Trump’s half-hearted attempts to distance himself from that act ring hollow in the face of his daily toxic rhetoric.
In the words of the French philosopher, Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Ron Eberhardt
Plainfield