Some Decidedly Unshocking News About Oil Can Boyd
The attentive reader will know that we at NotGraphs are acutely aware of the crippling nature of waking life, and will know, moroever, that the majority of us here engage in what Rabelais’ most faithful translators render in English as “tippling” — a practice that serves as a sort of spiritual analgesic in the face of life’s attendant cares and sorrows.
If a certain MLB press release — concerning the broadcast, on the MLB Network, of a documentary about the 1986 postseason — is to be believed, it would appear as though NotGraphs has found in former Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd a “brother from another mother,” as it were.
Consider these choice comments from the aforementioned communiqué de presse:
[Former Boston manager John] McNamara on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven of the World Series because he was drunk:
Well you said it, … that’s the exact reason.Former Red Sox pitching coach Bill Fischer on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven:
I came to the park and Al Nipper came up to me and said, “You should check on your long man. He was boxed up, under the weather from drinking, so we locked him in a room.
For anyone, like myself, who enjoys jumping to conclusions, then perhaps you’ll agree that the most entertaining one (i.e. conclusion) is of great surprise — surprise not that Oil Can Boyd was, on this singular occasion, too drunk to you-know-what, but that a man whose nickname apparently celebrates his affection for fermented beverages would have ever pitched sober ever.
In conclusion, therefore, vis-à-vis, a thing you can click and, in so doing, embiggen:
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
As the title says, not surprising. If memory serves “Oil can” was a euphemism for beer and that’s how the man earned his nickname.
Yes. As the article says: