Willie Mays was one of a kind

As a kid in the ’50s and ’60s, I couldn’t wait for baseball’s All-Star game every summer. That was when we could see the greatest ballplayer of all time, Willie Mays, in action (“Willie Mays, the Giants’ electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ dies at 93,” June 18). Even better, we could see him twice from 1959 to 1962 when there were two All-Star games.

Baltimore has been blessed with Brooks, Frank, Eddie, Boog and so many other All-Stars.

In 1958, Oriole Gus Triandos beat out Yogi Berra as the American League’s All-Star game starting catcher and pitcher Billy O’Dell shut out the National League for three innings to earn the game’s Most Valuable Player in a 4-3 AL victory. How thrilling that this took place in our own Memorial Stadium.

But just as exciting was that Willie Mays was here. He scored two of the National League’s three runs that day. He was one of a kind.

— Herb Cromwell, Catonsville

Congrats to UMMC physicians for union vote

Kudos to the residents and fellows who pushed through the vote to unionize University of Maryland Medical Center (“Residents, fellow physicians at University of Maryland Medical Center vote to unionize,” June 13). Fingers crossed that the concept infects the entire medical community, coast to coast.

My wife and I have been an item since her undergraduate years at University of Maryland, Baltimore County where she majored in chemistry. She passed the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) required for consideration for entry to medical school and, of the thousands of applicants was awarded 1 of the 144 or so available slots.

My point: It’s a very competitive process in which only the elite are admitted. Only to be worked to the bone through medical school and the subsequent years of residency.

On entering practice, doctors learn even more about the insurance industry which reimburses them pennies on the dollar while they reap billions in profits. Some examples: UnitedHealth Group over $20 billion in 2022, Cigna $6.7 billion, Elevance Health Inc. $6 billion, CVS Health Corp. $4.2 billion. Executive compensation is in the millions of dollars and yet not one of them could probably even pass the MCAT, never mind admission to a medical school. Yet these are the people profiting from patient illnesses, challenging doctors orders and compensating physicians pennies on the dollar.

Watching my wife labor over the last 30 years on weekends and holidays totaling some 80-plus hours per week for a net of $20 per hour has often found me suggesting “form a union, hang ‘Gone Fishing’ on your door and let the Industry executives field the patient calls — it might only take a week for them to capitulate.”

It looks like my fantasy might actually come true!

— Peter Bell, Monkton

Which Commandments version will get posted?

The state of Louisiana recently passed a law to go into effect in 2025 requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms (“New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments,” June 19).

This issue was supposedly settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980). In a 5-4 decision, the court decided in favor of the plaintiffs that a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was a violation of the First Amendment; its purpose was religious and not educational.

Some concerns about those Ten Commandments: There are actually three sets of them in the Bible, two in Exodus and one in Deuteronomy.

One of these sets (Ritual Decalogue) is different and somewhat more militant than the others. Whereas the more traditional set states, “You shall not make yourself an idol,” the comparable Ritual version states, “You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars and cut down their sacred poles.”

As the late religious scholar and author Christopher Hitchens wrote, “When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.”

— Otts Laupus, Elkridge