Yesterday, NotGraphs editor Carson Cistulli attended the Brewers On Deck event in downtown Milwaukee.
In the posts that Mr. Cistulli makes at Fan- and NotGraphs today, he might brag about how his time at said event was “behind the scenes” thanks to his new status as a member of BBWAA; he might write about a surprisingly witty comment by Ryan Braun; he might relay how very approachable some players were; he might even tell you that he couldn’t bring himself to talk to Bob Uecker for fear that the only question he could have possibly asked Mr. Uecker is, “Will you be my grandpa?”
Under less-informed circumstances, I would look forward to reading about any and all of the aforementioned topics, especially as Mr. Cistulli, who you might have noticed has a certain facility with language, might present them. What Mr. Cistulli does not have, is a sense of obligation to his readership, nor to the American public in general.
I know this because I know the following:
1. that Mr. Cistulli, yesterday, at the Brewers On Deck event in downtown Milwaukee, witnessed Dennis Haskins, AKA Mr. Belding;
2. that Mr. Cistulli did not take pains to discern why the fuck Dennis Haskins was just chillin’ with people in Milwaukee, at a Milwaukee Brewers offseason event;
3. Mr. Cistulli does not plan to even mention — in what might be an oppressive number of posts concerning Brewers On Deck — the appearance of Mr. Haskins at an event where both of them, presumably, held similarly exclusive access to things like a “meat-sandwich-only sandwich spread.”
When pressed as to why he would not even deign to mention Mr. Haskins’s mysterious presence at the event, Cistulli waved a characteristically limp and dismissive hand, saying, “It’s too easy.”
For prodigious talents such as Mr. Cistulli, talents for which entire subsidiary websites are created, it is too easy to give the public what it wants — nay: what it deserves. It is too easy to link Mr. Haskins’s connection to baseball. It is too easy to indulge in the blogability of a personality such as Dennis Haskins.
Well, I am no great talent; I am easy; I am not too good, Mr. Cistulli, to give the NotGraphs readership what they want.
And what they want is to more clearly imagine you, Mr. Cistulli, cradled in the arms of the man you dismissed so limp-wristedly.
The readership will also feel vindicated to know, Mr. Cistulli, that Dennis Haskins is a bigger man than you are — quite literally, though also figuratively. For even though you will not so much as acknowledge him, Mr. Cistulli, Dennis Haskins would like you to know that he very much supports your Twitter feed, such as it is.
And now the readership has been served properly, Mr. Cistulli. Take note. Please also take note that you left your monocle on my chaise lounge.
