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Five good things · Three minutes
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DELIGHT • Good News Network
At 99, she threw the first pitch of women's pro baseballShe had four broken ribs. She came anyway.
Maybelle Blair threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the Women's Professional Baseball League on August 1 in Springfield, Illinois, seven decades after the last women's pro league disbanded. She is 99. She had also broken four ribs recently. "Nothing was going to stop me from being here, even if I had to crawl," she told WICS. Blair pitched for the Peoria Redwings in 1948, back when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League filled ballparks during World War II. The new WPBL runs 30 games through September with four teams, all playing at Springfield's Robin Roberts Stadium. New York's Denae Benites hit the league's first home run and went 4-for-4. During the weekend, Blair got to meet the league mascot, also named Maybelle, which may be the only time a person has been introduced to their mascot self. She got misty at the game. "This is the happiest day of my life," she said. Read the full story → | |||
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KINDNESS • GreaterGood
A soaked dog waited at the fire station for homeThe tag had a number. The number went to voicemail.
The Cape Coral Fire Department got a call from a concerned couple who spotted a dog struggling in a canal with no way to climb out. Firefighters arrived and set up carefully, stationing one rescuer at the opening and another at the exit in case the dog swam their way. The rest of the crew pried off a storm drain cover and used a pole to guide him to dry land. Aside from being tired and soaked, he checked out fine. A tag on his collar gave his name, Rio, and a phone number, which went straight to voicemail. So Rio waited it out at Station 3, keeping his rescuers company until word spread on social media and his owners came for him. He is home now. The department also had a small reminder for everyone else: keep the tag and the microchip current, because the pole is a last resort. Read the full story → | |||
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DELIGHT • Positive News
750,000 young Brits picked up binoculars and went birdwatchingOnce the preserve of waterproof-clad retirees. Now the grandkids are hooked.
Nearly 750,000 Gen Z Brits now regularly go birdwatching, a 1,088% rise since 2018, according to research by Fifty5Blue published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. That makes it the second-fastest-growing hobby among 16- to 29-year-olds, behind only jewellery making. Ben Smith, 23, is one of them. His perfect day starts before sunrise with a flask of tea, binoculars and a local trail. "I don't necessarily have to see anything special," he said. Smith traces his love of birds to childhood trips in his father's van across rural Scotland, waking up to look for red kites and kestrels. He now studies zoology near Loch Lomond, where friends recently spent an evening paddling a canoe while listening to oystercatchers overhead. He credits climate anxiety, social media and, quietly, his grandparents, who "always seem to know the bird calls." RSPB reserves are now free for 16- to 24-year-olds. Read the full story → | |||
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DELIGHT • Positive News
Sport in Mind has helped 60,000 people beat lonelinessThe goal was fitness. The company came free.
Three UK groups are treating exercise as a cure for loneliness, and the numbers suggest it works. Sport in Mind, founded in 2010, has now supported more than 60,000 people experiencing mental health problems, running free sessions in everything from football to gardening. "Sport in Mind began with one simple intention: to help a friend who was unwell," said founder and CEO Neil Harris. The charity works with the NHS to build spaces where sport is a route back to routine rather than a competition. The Bluetits Chill Swimmers started in Wales and grew into a global network of people who meet outdoors to swim, dip and talk. GoodGym sends members running or cycling to help older neighbours and local projects, whether clearing a garden or sorting food bank donations. "The benefits go both ways," said head of operations Ed Field. People turn up for the exercise. They stay for the company. Read the full story → | |||
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DELIGHT • Upworthy
A diver found 162-year-old Guinness, still sealed and drinkableIt sat on the seabed since 1864. The bubble held.
A Belgian photographer named Stefan Panis pulled a 162-year-old bottle of Guinness from a shipwreck in the English Channel, sealed and intact after more than a century underwater. Panis found it while diving the wreck of The Mindoro, a cargo ship that left London for Vancouver Island in 1864 before it collided with another vessel and sank. The beer survived because of physics, not luck. Brewing historian Edward Bourke explained that bottles that settle upside down trap an air bubble, which creates a pressurized barrier blocking seawater from seeping past the cork. Upright bottles do not make it. Panis and his colleagues sent the find to a microbiologist specialising in beer at KU Leuven University in Belgium, who wants to study its yeast strains, some of which may now be extinct. Panis believes a full case still rests in the wreck. Guinness experts told him much of it may still be drinkable.
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With love, The Editor
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