Major League Baseball likes to think it thought the idea up in 1933, when the best players in the American League squared off against the best in The National League and some PR guy labeled it The All Star Game. But the true FIRST of an All Star team dates back to 835 AD, when the Catholic Church designated the first day in November as All Saints Day. That all Star Team of martyrs and miracle workers who dedicated their lives to God and in many cases gave same in His name.

Like so many Ty Cobb’s---Babe Ruth’s and Jackie Robinson’s most of us can name some of the better known Saintly stars. Joan of Arc who met a fiery end in a French woodpile, John The Baptist, the evangelist who would not be silenced until opponents of Christianity cut off his head. There are plenty of saints to go around. The catholic mass dedicates the liturgy to a different known saint on every day of the year. There are saints to emulate, like St. Francis of Assisi, who was walking the walk before the extremists at PETA started blabbing the talk.

As in baseball, for every all star there are scores of really good players who didn’t make the first team. We’re told the Catholic Church is keeping book on thousands of saints and would be saints, including people who actually walked among us. Like the scouts who grade the pros on the 5 tools…fielding, throwing, speed on the bases, hitting and hitting with power, there’s a long, picky criteria before any man or woman who lived an exemplary life makes the cut in Vatican City. The toughest criteria are to prove they presided over a miracle. Interestingly, I met my wife Barbara early on an All Saints Day Morning. We did meet in a bar, but hey if your trying to convert sinners you have to go where they congregate. Anyway, just about anyone who knows Barbara will tell you she’s a living saint, and down the road…an odds on favorite for canonization. Proving her miracle is easy. She’s lived with me for 27 years. No valium, no straight jacket. Maybe a little wine.

Thinking back to that night, it’s hard to imagine it’s been almost 30 years, but she had me at hello and so ended a long and interesting bachelorhood.

The memories come flooding back this week, with a lot of Long Island, where we met and New York City, where we played, and Atlantic City where we went on our third date, are still in deep trouble days after Sandy’s rampage. Come to think of it, Homer’s Chinese where we had our first date is long gone…as is Windows on The World atop one of the Twin Towers…the backdrop for date number two.

It’s probably fitting that we live and thrive in Northern California. I popped the question at The Sardine Factory in Monterey, then called her Dad from a joint called Sly Mc Fly’s…both alive and well..

A couple other thoughts on Saints and storms; someone has been watching over NY for decades, as it’s dodged so many of Mother Nature’s bullets. Funny how NY based reporters who never give it a second thought when tornadoes wipe out miles of Oklahoma or Fires…consume whole California neighborhoods are shocked and indignant when nature slams their part of the world.

Finally- I Phone, Your Phone, my phone...they're not smart phones without juice...as thousands in Sandy's path are learning. Can't these Silicon Valley savants hook up with Dura Cell or Eveready and develop some pop in batteries for emergencies? Clearly, it's time right now trying to communicate in a disaster is a disaster...