Things have been moving so quickly here at Passions in America. Immediately after our joyous and inspiring “Photo. Forward. Feed.” campaign, we were approached by the wonderful Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Negro Leagues, and many special events were planned to celebrate those players who came before Jackie Robinson and before baseball was truly the national pastime. The events were all postponed or canceled because of the global pandemic.

Bob has long had this idea about having people tip their caps to those Negro Leagues’ players. It’s a simple but powerful gesture. He asked us if we might help him create something memorable.

What we ended up with turned out to be magical instead.

The campaign kicked off with a tip of the cap from the four living former Presidents of the United States. That’s not a bad way to start. And over a three-week span, “Tip Your Cap” has reached tens of millions of people across America. Cap tips have come from an extraordinary collection of celebrities ranging from Michael Jordan to Paul Rudd, Billie Jean King to The Temptations, Henry Aaron to Conan O’Brien, songwriting legend Mike Stoller to Hollywood Walk of Fame star Joe Mantegna, Stephen Colbert to Magic Johnson. At last check, twenty Baseball Hall of Famers have tipped their caps as has General Colin Powell, music legend Tony Bennett and then there was this very special cap tip from Chris Cassidy in space.

You can see it all at the Tip Your Cap website.

Bob Kendrick has called it the most extraordinary recognition ever for those Negro Leagues’ players, and we at Passions in America are so proud to have been a part of it.

And we cannot wait to share what comes next.

Every now and again, Nick Offerman — actor, writer, comedian, woodworker, host and all-around wonderful soul — will call people out of the blue just to thank them. For instance, when he was performing in Australia not too long ago, he suddenly and instinctively dialed Michael Schur — the executive producer of the show “Parks and Recreation”– who hired Nick for his seminal role as Ron Swanson.

“Mike,” he said, “I just wanted to tell you that I’m in Australia performing and it’s all because of you. Thank you.”

Lots of people have stories like that about Nick.

A couple of weeks ago while cleaning out my office, I came across this small and unmarked white box that looked entirely unfamiliar. As a sportswriter for more than 30 years, I do often come across weird things in this office.

As you can see above, I might find plastic baseball helmets.

The idea is simple. Every single day, we are besieged by businesses, political strategists, marketing gurus and media entities telling us what we are. We are young. We are old. We are Southerners or Northerners or Californians or from flyover country. We are Republicans or Democrats, male or female, straight or gay, working class or middle class or upper class or elites. We are our race, our religion, our height, our weight, our family status, our heritage.

Over the past several months, as I’ve managed a variety of challenging client matters and Joe has been out counting down the 100 greatest baseball players for The Athletic (a list I have strong disagreements with, by the way), we took a bit of a hiatus from the Passion project. We wanted to rethink some things. We wanted to consider so new angles.

A few years ago, while on an extended trip to Asia, I made a stop in the Kingdom of Bhutan. I attended an archery exhibition (the shared national passion), visited a small public school, and toured a monastery with a Buddhist Monk who lectured me about serenity and peacefulness as he constantly juggled incoming calls on his new cell phone. I also got a surprise lesson in passion from two Bhutanese twenty-somethings.