Miss Manners Does Baseball

I am an unqualified admirer of the prose faculties of Judith Martin, whom you may know by her nom de suavity, “Miss Manners.”

Not only is Miss Manners America’s leading Gentleman with Lady Parts, but her ministrations have also helped preserve Western Civilization more than any stupid monk in his lamewad scriptorium. While said Western Civilization is undoubtedly lingering in hospice care at this very moment, Miss Manners soldiers on, armed with nothing but savoir-faire and a shimmering grace of a caliber foreign to our stinking world.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the lessons Miss Manners imparts regarding, say, one’s mother-in-law who insists upon talking about her scabies during high tea or that utter beast in first class are also applicable to baseball. For instance, in one of her recent epistolary lectures she reproved a young lady who had received not one but two ghastly marriage proposals via cellular-telephone textual message thusly: “That you have captivated two gentlemen who thought this would charm you is alarming.”

Baseball players, you know, are but low creatures in need of horse-whispering and social finishing, so the wisdom of Miss Manners penetrates their tiny worlds. To wit …

Now go and better yourselves, swine. And always crap while wearing a tailored vest.