Alabama visited Auburn for a three game series, starting tonight. Things did not go well for the Tigers.
Ryan Tella was 1-of-5 with three strike outs:
Garrett Cooper had one hit in four at bats and struck out once:
Between the two they stranded five of Auburn’s eight base runners as Alabama won 6-2.
In the major sports – football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and baseball – Auburn is now 9-43 against the SEC since the 2012 SEC baseball tournament. I’m keeping count because someone has to.
Other things: Nineteen percent of Alabama are on food stamps.
Then there’s this most depressing lead:
In Hale County, Alabama, 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability. On the day government checks come in every month, banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale.
[…]
As far as the federal government is concerned, you’re disabled if you have a medical condition that makes it impossible to work. In practice, it’s a judgment call made in doctors’ offices and courtrooms around the country. The health problems where there is most latitude for judgment — back pain, mental illness — are among the fastest growing causes of disability.
[…]
In Hale County, there was one guy whose name was mentioned in almost every story about becoming disabled: Dr. Perry Timberlake. I began to wonder if he was the reason so many people in Hale County are on disability. Maybe he was running some sort of disability scam, referring tons of people into the program.
After sitting in the waiting room of his clinic several mornings in a row, I met Dr. Timberlake. It turns out, there is nothing shifty about him. He is a doctor in a very poor place where pretty much every person who comes into his office tells him they are in pain.
“We talk about the pain and what it’s like,” he says. “I always ask them, ‘What grade did you finish?'”
What grade did you finish, of course, is not really a medical question. But Dr. Timberlake believes he needs this information in disability cases because people who have only a high school education aren’t going to be able to get a sit-down job.
It is an enlightening piece, and worth your read.
