What Is Davey Johnson Doing?

Here’s newly minted Nats skipper Davey Johnson!

The discerning discerner will observe that also in this photo is a white orb of cowhide, something known in industry parlance as a “baseball.” It seems there are but a finite number of possibilities to explain the presence of the baseball in this picture …

A) Mr. Johnson, blinded by the klieg lights, is unable to see the baseball hurtling toward his unsuspecting chompers. It goes without saying that Jim Riggleman, just off stage and concealed by a fake Cardinal Richelieu beard and his best Slovene brogue, is the author of these unfolding horrors.

B) Mr. Johnson, after an intense and character-shaping apprenticeship, is dancing not the Tango, but rather the Calcaterra.

C) The ball has descended from the firmament above and is now fluttering about Mr. Johnson. Much like the magical-realist butterflies of a certain Garcia Marquez novel, a flock of hovering baseballs will now and forever trail Mr. Johnson wherever he goes. It is at once a portent of the dugout miracles to come and a stinging rebuke of the electoral college.

D) That’s not a baseball. That’s the haunting, lingering spectral presence of Tony Plush.

E) Mr. Johnson has the Uri Geller-like power to levitate baseballs, outerwear made from fine Corinthian leather, and beautiful ladies.

What other explanations could there be for the sorcery before you?

(Righteous gratitude to Dangerous Don Hammack.)