Archive for Wisdom

By the time you read this, and perhaps even by the time I’m done writing it, Mike Carp will no longer be a Seattle Mariner. He won’t even be Mike Carp any more, by the way I measure the Mike Carp-ness of a thing. Unless you follow the Mariners, in fact, he was never really Mike Carp in the first place, any more than you are.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the fate of a man like Mike Carp would stand out to me from the general ebb and flow of the general human existence. That time will come again, when the loss of a Mike Carp can be felt, can carry significance. For the Mariners, Carp leaves his team much as he found it.

A couple of days ago on Twitter one Carson Cistulli compared me to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and to be honest, I wasn’t initially thrilled by the comparison. After all, Heraclitus isn’t the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with; he hated almost everything and everybody. We’re talking about a guy who came down with dropsy, ignored the advice of his doctors, rubbed cow manure over himself and baked himself in the sun. He was dead the next day. We’re not talking about an ancient hero here.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following action-news photographic images, airlifted from the front lines of media sociale, prove beyond all doubt that veteran tosser LaTroy Hawkins is a rooter of not only Kansas Jayhawks basketball, but also of the Nippled Mounds of American Ladies …

And …

Having read and re-read the Zagat Guide to the Good Life, I have long been aware that an appreciation of both Dr. Naismith’s game and lady paps signify a striving toward said Good Life.

So it is with LaTroy Hawkins, Sommelier of Titties.

Those concerned about creeping Maoism will recall that Four Loko — the drink that helpfully combined restorative caffeine with mind-clearing alcohol — was banned by the meddlesome crypto-Etruscans at the FDA. After all, taking our guns away is easier when we’re neither awake nor drunk.

Anyhow, base-ball-ing legend Boileryard Clarke, who has for years sustained himself on a diet of nothing more than hooch and punched-out constables, has entered the fray and wielded his celebrity like a sword that looks like a dick.

So please do drink deeply of first the following paid advertisement and then a high-reaching pour of Four Loko …

Play better base ball and beat back tertiary syphilis with Four Loko.

It won’t surprise you to learn that I’m an opinionated fellow. After all, I am on the Internet pretty much constantly, and roughly 95 percent of the Internet is powered by misguided righteous indignation. And I’m proud to say that few, if any, are more misguided than I am.

But for all of my many misguided opinions, perhaps none of them were so misguided as my belief that dynasties were typically measured in years and accomplishments. I mean, sure, we can measure them in those things. But if we do, then the winner invariably ends up being the 4th Egyptian Dynasty because “ooh, look at me, I built some pyramids.” Or the Japanese Emperors because their line dates back to at least 500 AD. How boring. We need new criteria!

But what to choose? We could measure a dynasty in seasons on television, or duck calls sold, or albums sold, or games won, or descendents who wind up ruling nation-states.

Fortunately, Internet philosopher Jose Canseco is an expert on a great many things, only some of which are related to hitting round objects with other round objects. One of those other things on which Canseco can wax poetically is the founding and maintenence of a dynasty. For Canseco was there from 1988-1990, when the Oakland A’s had an unbroken reign over the American League. He saw what it took to carve out that top spot and to hold it. And that is:

A dynasty is not measured by rings but by the amount of fear your opponent has for you and he knows you know

— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) January 22, 2013

See friends? You don’t measure a dynasty in years or in accomplishments. You measure it in fear. Fear and knowing that your opponent knows you know the fear he has…or something. But mostly in fear. You don’t rule and then force your children upon your subjects because you’re inherently better than anyone else, but because the thought of the hammer you (and your spawn) might bring down on any who challenge you is debilitating.

And thus is it that I nominate Dayn Perry, drunk and naked after nine adult beverages, as the greatest dynasty there has ever been, or ever will be, as that’s the scariest thing I can think of. It’s either him or the offensive prowess of Jim Rice.

The author has reason to believe (which is to say, he probably read it in the New Yorker once) that it’s a not uncommon practice among certain Buddhist monks for them (i.e. these same monks) to spend hours meditating upon the reality of their own future deaths — with a view, one supposes, towards demystifying same.

A much less common, but entirely similar, practice is to meditate on the death of young Brooklyn outfielder Al Thake, who drowned less than a month before his 23rd birthday while fishing in New York Harbor in 1872.

His obituaries, presented below, appear to be the oldest extant ones among professional base-ballists.

For example, from the Brooklyn Eagle (September 2nd, 1872):

Read the rest of this entry »

Minor Leaguers don’t get Dental insurance therefore I just bought a Groupon for a $40 exam w/ x-ray & cleaning. Minor victory!

— Jeremy Barfield (@Baseclogger) December 22, 2012

Jeremy Barfield isn’t so different from you and I. At one point or another, no matter your walk of life, Groupon touches us all.

H/T: The Answer Man: @AnswerDave.

In which the Royal We insert the name of Von Hayes, uncomfortably apt yin to Dick Allen’s yang, into the used books We purchased while earning Our liberal arts degree from the local state university.

Today’s topic: the End of the World, as foretold by professional doomsayer and Anglican curate, Robert Malthus.

I think I may fairly make two postulata.

First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.

Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain in its present state.

These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed laws, all its various operations.

Assuming then, my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of Von Hayes is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

Von Hayes, when unchecked, increases in a geometric ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.

By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

This implies a strong and constantly operating check on Von Hayes from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall some where and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.

This has been the only episode of Inserting Von Hayes’ Name Into Works of Non-Fiction.

Read the rest of this entry »

In order to more fully understand the Commissioner’s reasoning, I have used Google’s powerful language tools to translate his statement from English into Japanese, then Czech, then Hebrew, then Vietnamese, then Afrikaans, then Russian, then Arabic, then Welsh, then back to English:

Since Tuesday, I have an agreement between the Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jay to be considered carefully. Welfare Division I baseball and our agreements for such transactions. I also have a contribution to participate in the transaction in the past, and consult with an experienced baseball operations.

Not after careful analysis of this information, including the prospects and young players and high reputation, and established the National Society, and the project agreement Baseball Club Baseball League 2 is consistent with the reliability current rules restrict what deductive, and is designed to improve the energy performance of all teams finish in time to avoid the same, of course, all transactions should be connected now or in the future in order to improve the ability of competitive and reasonable, but if any fans

“I understand, to hear from baseball on Tuesday, and I completely and organizations in the field of corporate social responsibility and social importance, and are sensitive to the interests of the masses of Bmarlins Miami this agreement, the club, and event value of our efforts to account Marlins Marlins rather than the information in the future together we beautiful part of the Miami community, to look forward to, to feel the force will continue to assess the situation under control, to fulfill the promise of ownership Marlins, they share this belief, it is committed to creating long-term team can be proud of its fans altogether.

Ah, now I get it.

I was a white boy in Jamaica first, and then a Jamaican in Germany. Then I was a Euro in the south.

Even as a nerd in prep school, I was out of place. I flew to Boston with a Colorado Rockies starter jacket for some reason, and very little experience with snow. That jacket, cinched tightly to reveal one eye most days that first winter, was often the object of scorn. Labelled a Jamaican on some paperwork somewhere, I again found myself as a white person at social events full of minorities.

And I was bad at sports. I arrived at Milton Academy a full five-foot-three, 100 pounds. I grew three inches every summer, but left school six-foot-two, hitting a buck fifty soaking wet. My motor cortex thought my limbs were shorter than they were, and so I was uncoordinated and small most years. That resulted in some ridicule, but it also created a problem for me, since I somehow had to satisfy the sports requirement every season. I resisted the wrestling team’s advances to be their super lightweight. Then a couple small bones broke and made me seem brittle. So I turned to other sports. Intramural (hack) skiing. Hack ultimate. Hack squash. I coached the field hockey team. I tried soccer until my ankles begged for mercy.

The only sport I kept trying all four years was baseball.

Read the rest of this entry »