That’s Odd

Field of Dreams

The Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees played the first Major League Baseball game on Thursday night in a specially built field near the original “Field of Dreams” movie site in Dyersville, Iowa.

The 1989 movie, based on W.P. Kinsella’s “Shoeless Joe,” portrays Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa corn farmer who hears a voice telling him, “If you build it, they will come.” Kinsella then proceeds, against the odds, to build a baseball diamond in the midst of his corn crop with the support of his wife and daughter.

Costner attended the Thursday game.

Delayed due to the pandemic, the game had originally been planned to be held between the White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals in 2020, after a scheduling issue precluded the Yankees from participating. However, the game was ultimately rescheduled, and the White Sox won 9-8 with a home run into the cornfields.

Fans attending the game entered the original field before proceeding through the center cornfield on a path leading to the MLB Stadium. The stadium, constructed in 2019, dismantled in 2020, and reconstructed in 2021 for the game, has seating for up to 8,000 people.

Canadian Luxury Train Debuts First U.S. Route

The Canadian Rocky Mountaineer luxury scenic train line has launched its first U.S. route.

The two-day, one-night route runs through Denver, Colorado, and Moab, Utah, and is known as “Rockies to the Red Rocks.” The new route joins the line’s other three, which are located in western Canada.

The Rocky Mountaineer has been honored eight times by the World Travel Awards as the “World’s Leading Travel Experience by Train,” and in 2020, it won a Globe Travel Award for “Best Rail Company.”

Passengers on the trip do not spend a night on the train; instead, they disembark and spend the night in a local hotel, paid for as part of the cost of the journey.

Nicole Ford, communications director at Rocky Mountaineer, shared, “Our routes showcase some of the most spectacular scenery North America has to offer. Our trains only travel during the day and feature oversized windows so guests do not miss a moment of the ever-changing landscapes.”

The Rocky Mountaineer’s routes also have passengers eating at their seats, with each row treated as a table in a restaurant, with personalized service, scheduled meals, and drinks on demand.

Each car has a small outdoor viewing platform.

The inaugural season will run through November 19.

Snake Fest

AUGUST 2021

A CURE FOR AN 8-YEAR-OLD

It was a bitter pill to swallow. How could such a gorgeous, healthy child suddenly be so sick? e

diagnosis was shocking. eir eight-year-old daughter was battling the dreaded machalah, and the prognosis was not good. e parents took her to the greatest specialists who, after running a battery of tests, proclaimed that there was simply no hope. “It is only a matter of time,” they told the panic-stricken parents.

Humans can give up. But a Yid does not. Even the unkindest predictions cannot weaken our burning bitachon that Hashem, the Kol Yachol, can do anything. “Everything is guided from Above,” the distraught yet hopeful father told the Tehillim Kollel office as he asked to have his daughter’s name added to the list, “we know that we can merit miracles. Our tefillos and Tehillim can defy the most discouraging prognosis that a doctor can give.”

It’s hard to describe the fervor, the sincere passion and feeling, that was palpable when the special minyan of yungerleit began to recite Tehillim on this girl’s behalf the next morning. ey davened for the girl to be healed from Above and granted long healthy years.

Shortly after, the child suddenly collapsed. e ambulance was called and she was zoomed over to the emergency room where a new round of tests was ordered. e parents, fearing the worst had occurred, waited in desperation for the results to come back.

Nothing could have prepared them for the report. ere was no sign of the illness! All that was left was a small growth that could easily be cured.

e doctors were in shock. It was too unbelievable to believe. But the elated parents accepted the news with serenity. After all, nothing is beyond the power of our special Tehillim’l.

WEEKLY COLUMN OF RECENT EPISODES BY TEHILLIM KOLLEL

Sign up for our annual mermbership: 718.705.7174

Info@TehillimKollel.org wasn’t invited to.

Last month, for ten days, hundreds of snake enthusiasts battled it out in the Everglades in Florida at the state’s 2021 Florida Python Challenge.

The goal of the contest is to remove as many Burmese pythons as possible. The creatures are not native to Florida and a bad effect on wildlife in the state. They are found primarily in and around the Everglades, where they prey on birds, mammals and other reptiles. They can grow to be 26 feet long and over 200 pounds when fully grown.

This year’s contest, held from July 9-18, led to the removal of a record 223 pythons from South Florida. Two of those slithering critters were more than 15 feet long.

Six-hundred people participated in the hunt but Charlie Dachton came out on top.

The snake-hunter from Southwest Ranches in Broward County, earned the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize for collecting a whopping 41 pythons. The local adventurer got a little help from his son Chance. Together, they scoured in the dark and encountered a nest with 22 python eggs. A female Burmese python may lay 50 to 100 eggs at a time.

“Every one of those babies becomes a little monster,” Charlie Dachton said, “and each one of those monsters reproduce.”

Brandon Call nabbed the longest snake, a 15-foot, 9-inch-long critter.

Professional Dusty “The Wildman” Crum snagged the second longest python at 15-feet, 5-inches.

Sss-ounds sss-pectacular.

Swim ‘N’ Win

James Savage is now the youngest person to swim the entire length of Lake Tahoe complete the alpine lake’s coveted Triple Crown.

He is 14 years old.

Savage completed the 21.3-mile trip across the scenic lake, which straddles the California-Nevada line, in 12 hours on August 1. He earlier swam the other two legs of the Lake Tahoe Triple Crown, all 10 miles (16 kilometers) or longer.

James said he enjoys swimming in pools, but they’re pretty much “all the same.”

“Open water, you can swim in oceans, lakes, and you get to travel around,” he said.

Last August, at age 13, Savage became the youngest to complete the 12-mile (19-kilometer) “true width swim.” He also swam the 10-mile (16-kilometer) Vikingsholm route that traverses the southern portion of Lake Tahoe, known for its pine tree-lined beaches and ski resorts.

James has been swimming since he was young.

And at age 8, he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco.

James’ mother was concerned that James would get bored during the long swim.

“It’s not like he can sit and talk to us when he gets bored. His face is in the water and so really, he’s by himself,” Jillian Savage said.

“But this time, he kept telling me, ‘Mom, I feel so much better mentally prepared this time.’ And he went out, and he just did such a great job,” she said.

With the title of the youngest person to ever achieve the Triple Crown, James said he isn’t sure what he wants to do next.

His mom says he’ll likely set his sights high.

“When he started this whole open water thing and he told me, ‘Mom, I want to swim from Alcatraz,’ and we kind of laughed in his face,” she said.

“We let him do it kind of hoping and thinking it would be a one and done, and he got out and he said, ‘I want to do this again. When’s the next one?’” she said. “And it just kept going and going and going and his feats kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and I’m kind of afraid to see what he wants to do next. But whatever it is, we’ll make it happen.”

Sounds like he’s really making waves.