Editorial: Thumbs

To child care expansion at Riverland Community College in Austin.

You want a build an economy? You want to give people an hand-up instead of a handout? Building a child care location at a place of higher education allows people to get the education they need in modern society while tending to family desires, too. Sure, they still pay for the child care hours, but students who are also parents might not even be able to get their young ones into the child care if the location makes scheduling problematic or if there are too few slots available or any number of obstacles. Riverland, in partnership with Hormel Foods Corp. and The Hormel Foundation, secured more than $3 million for the project.

And while we would like to see child care someday return to the Albert Lea campus, there is no doubting that many Albert Leans travel to the larger Austin campus for classes. They will benefit from this project.

 

To the Baseball Hall of Fame.

What? No players were elected to the Hall of Fame this year? Seriously? OK, we get it. The vote says something about the bad boys of the steroids era. Cheaters don’t get into Cooperstown. But honest players such as Jack Morris and Craig Biggio deserve to get in. Voting for no one only denies fans of the game what they want — heroes in the hall.

But the controversial vote also says the system for voting players to the Hall of Fame is broken. The members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America vote at least 75 percent in favor of someone getting in. The threshold is too high. Make it 64 percent, which is roughly two-thirds. Or else remove the baseball writers altogether. Other sports seem to induct more players into their halls each year than baseball. And the sport has expanded the number of teams and players over the decades. The system needs to be updated.

 

To Mayo Clinic Health System.

Thanks for your generous contribution to bring Youth Frontiers to Albert Lea. The program teaches eighth-graders to be themselves, to not succumb to peer pressure, to be more comfortable with classmates. It’s all about courage. Programs like these go a long way toward teaching our kids to be good to each other, and sometimes it teaches lessons that students don’t encounter anywhere else in their daily lives. It wouldn’t be possible for the school district to hold the program without the support of the medical center.

 

To the A.L. wrestling team.

Undefeated. We like the sound of that. The Albert Lea High School wrestling team was 11-0 headed into a tournament Saturday in St. Cloud. (Look for results in the Monday paper.) Congratulations to the Tiger wrestlers for yet another good start and showing dominance yet again. It takes a lot of work to maintain a strong program.