Day: July 9, 2004

That’s my life

Two quick notes:

1) Reggie Sanders, in his online diary for today, says that during the break, he’ll take his family out and do some fun things. But, he admits, “I will think about baseball on the off-day. That’s my life. I would like not to think about it, but it’s what I do, you know?”

Maybe MLB’s “I live for this!” slogan isn’t too far from the truth.

2) I can’t link to it, because it’s from a video clip, but Stacey alerted me to a wonderful photo on mlb.com
of Johnny Damon, hair everywhere, scoring the winning run in last night’s Red Sox/A’s game.

Original comments…

stacey: really, that photo was amazing enough that i’ve snagged it to share with our gentle readers. you can see it (in a probably not very legal way) here: GORGEOUS

Levi: I commented earlier to a coworker regarding the post about the kid having to leave early, “I’m kind of like a right-wing radio host with a tiny audience: I know what to throw them to get them all riled up.”

That photo clearly belongs in that category, too.

Jason: Like Johnny Damon, I not too long ago had a lot of hair. And, like Johnny Damon, I have cut it. Unfortunately, I have no photographic proof to that fact, but believe me, it’s true.

Or just look at a more recent photo of Johnny Damon. We’re identical.

maura: and the headline that night? ‘it gets hairy, but red sox win in 10th’

Dan: Was I the only one who really disliked Johnny Damon when he was with the Royals? He was so damn clean cut and seemed a bit snooty, even. Now, he friggin’ rules.

I guess it could be I was the only one who paid attention to him at all.

thatbob: If I was the umpire I would call Johnny Damon safe as soon as his batting helmet leapt across home plate – a full second before Damon himself. Also, if I was his batting helmet, that would be cool!

Steve: I guess Dan can’t vouch for this but I have had a full-blown man crush on Johnny Damon since the Royals days. He just seemed like the perfect ballplayer looks-wise. Now, if it was 1973 he would still look like the perfect ballplayer. Of course, in our postmodern times, its perfectly legitimate to argue that he is still the perfect ballplayer looks wise. PS-my all time favorite ballplayer looks-wise is John Kruk but I never had a man crush on him

Levi: And John Kruk has gotten all . . . boring, now that he’s on ESPN. His suit is always clean, his tie is tied, his hair has that same mix of superglue and horse polish stuff in it that Jeff Brantley uses, and he never drinks a beer or eats a hot dog or talks about his missing ball on the air.

Good day, bad mom

Any day that the Cardinals and Cubs both have off is a bad day. Not as bad as a day when the Cardinals lose, but pretty lousy.

In part to make up for those teams having an off-day yesterday, I sneaked out of work at noon with my coworker, Peter, an Angels fan, to go see the Sox play the Angels. It was an exciting game on a beautiful day. When the Sox got runners at the corners with one out, the Angels called Jose Guillen in to play at the second base position while they shifted the second baseman to the left side to join the shortstop; Guillen went to the dugout to borrow someone’s infield glove. When you have five infielders and they’re all playing up on the grass, it looks like a wall of fielders. So Juan Uribe hit it over them, way over them and off the left-center-field wall for a long game-winning single.

Around the third inning, a couple of women showed up with about ten kids in tow, ranging in age from about 5 to 9. Each kid had a plastic cup of some particularly noxious-looking red slush. They sat a few rows behind us and watched the game. Then, in the 8th inning, with the Sox down 8-5, I heard the lead mom say, “OK. It’s time to go. Put down your cups [of particularly noxious-looking red stuff] and come along.”

Just as I was about to turn and give the mom the glare I usually reserve for SUV drivers who run red lights while talking to their broker on two phones, I heard a boy pipe up, Oliver-like, “But the game’s not over.”

It wasn’t an exclamation; it was more a combination of clear statement of fact and implied question. “Exactly!” I thought. “That kid gets it. That kid is going to go far. Reserve the Oval Office, because I’m ready to vote for that straight-talking kid as soon as he hits 35.”

But the kid might as well have been Helen Thomas in the briefing room, the way the mom Ari-Fleischered him. She ignored him. He might as well have spoken in Ancient Assyrian. She didn’t even pretend there was a legitimate answer to his statement. The kids filed out, the Sox tied the game, then won it, and everyone got back to Rolling Forest Meadowsville Park Hills half an hour earlier.

My only hope is that the boy’s clarity of thought, his sharpness of understanding, are not damaged in coming years by his mother’s obvious lack of same. I have little hope, though. We all know that the sins of the fathers have a habit of redounding unto the seventh generation; can the sins of the mothers be any less malevolent?

Original comments…

Toby: My only hope is that word of this post doesn’t get back to the mom, who, in turn, sues Levi for the emotional pain it has inflicted on her.

Jason: Levi could always countersue her for the emotional pain *he* had to suffer because she took her kids home early.

He could even try pinning child endangerment on her, as well.

Becky S: Sheesh, what kind of values are people teaching their kids these days? My brother once dumped a woman because she wanted to leave a Phillies game during extra innings. He’s gonna make a great dad!

Levi: Should I have called DCFS? I don’t have a phone, but I bet I could have borrowed one for the sake of the child.