By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com
I feel the need to share a message I received from someone in Amarillo, Texas, who apparently believes I shouldn’t comment on matters relating to the city I once called home.
I won’t tell you his name, since he sent the message to me privately. I responded privately as well, telling him he was full of feces … except that I used a more descriptive term that means the same thing.
He wrote me this message: Your writings about the Sod Poodles is (sic) trash. You don’t live here so you can stop writing about stuff here. I figured by the way you look you would be a Biden fan.
Well, excuse me, buster!
I have taken to writing about the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the city’s new Double-A minor league baseball team because (a) I believe the team brings a lot of pizzazz to the city and (b) the city has invested a lot of actual and emotional capital in reviving its downtown district and the Sod Poodles are a big part of that revival.
I am not sure what my correspondent has read that would anger him so much. It’s not as though I have been trashing the Sod Poodles. On the contrary I’ve been cheering them on every step of the way. I applauded the team for winning the Texas League title in 2019 in the Sod Poodles’ first season ever. Granted, they weren’t an expansion team; they relocated to Amarillo after vacating San Antonio, so the team was an established entity in the Texas League.
Moreover, I have cheered the construction of Hodgetown, the Soddies’ new ballpark that was erected downtown. If I have one concern about the project it has been the absence of any businesses buying retail space in the parking garage the city built next to Hodgetown. The park itself is a thing of beauty. Granted, I haven’t yet attended a ballgame there, but I have seen it up close on visits to Amarillo. Hodgetown is a beaut, man!
I am not sure what my correspondent’s assessment of my political leaning has to do with anything. I guess he was just looking for something else to sling at me. Whatever.
My goal is to continue to comment on matters relating to Amarillo. I still have a member of my family living there. My wife and I spent many years there and grew to love the community.
That qualifies me as someone who is fit to comment on matters that I deem appropriate. So … there.