Among other things Would Marcus Daly have dreamed this?

By PAUL FUGLEBERG

I think it was Marcus Daly, one of Montana’s “Copper kings” who said when considering a difficult decision, “First comes the dream.” Next comes the decision on how to proceed.

After viewing the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on television, I wonder how Marcus Daly would have reacted.

He might have thought he was dreaming when he saw athletes from such unlikely nations with conflicting interests parading, smiling, laughing, dancing, singing and joyfully waving to the audience and to other participants representing Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, China, Japan, Korea, the United States and many others.

Would he have been able to get them to cooperate constructively?

No doubt it would have taken a long time.

Yet much simpler things have taken a long time to develop, too. Look at professional baseball and what it has done with foul balls long destined for a ball bucket to be used for batting practice, fly ball and infield practice.

Someone came up with the idea of having uniformed ball boys and girls to retrieve foul balls along the sidelines and simply hand them or gently toss them to little kids in nearby rows in the grandstands. Even the players themselves share out-of-play balls with little kids. The happy looks of recipients of those balls are proof that the public relations action make lifelong friends and future fans -- at relatively small cost to team owners.

So, who knows what the Olympics celebration joys can lead to?