WORCESTER, Mass. Spring is in the air in New England, even if the ground is still too soggy in some places to play baseball. "Like Yogi Berra said, 'April is the cruelest month'," notes Little League dad Todd Schwab. "The spring chill really makes you hungry," he says as he and son Todd, Jr. slurp giant sodas while waiting in line for their turn to meet former Red Sox pitcher Rich Garces, a right-hander whose weight was officially listed as 250 pounds during his playing days, but who was believed to be much heavier. "That was with one foot off the scale," says his former pitching coach Joe Kerrigan.
El Guapo: "You keep eating like that, someday you'll be in the big leagues!"
Garces, also known as "El Guapo" or "The Handsome One" during his major league career, is part of an outreach program on the part of Major League Baseball designed to keep fat kids from quitting the sport so that they will eventually realize their potential as pitchers. "We have a program for black kids," says Commissioner Bud Selig," referring to the RBI or 'Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities' initiative, "but we've never done anything to link today's victims of childhood obesity with the overweight greats of the past."
Wells: "The lunch buffet was picked over, so I ate a batboy."
In San Diego, obese pitcher David Wells has signed on with the Padres for a victory lap to end his career, and he spends time before each game giving kids tips on proper diet. "You've got to learn to pace yourself," he tells Ronnie Dalrymple, a porky twelve year-old who weighs in at 180 pounds and is a set-up man for the Hungry Crab Marlins, an A-level Little League team sponsored by a local restaurant. "When you come to the park, get your protein and carbohydrates first with a couple of hot dogs or three and a soft drink, then get an ice cream bar or sundae." "Uh-huh," the boy says as he nods his head up and down like a bobble-head doll. "Then and only then do you switch to the low-mass, high calorie foods such as cotton candy."
Livan Hernandez: "Do you mind if I get something to eat at the seventh-inning stretch?"
The connection between weight and pitching prowess was often suspected, but never confirmed until a study by Kyle Rayl, a member of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. "If you plot the statistics of pitchers going back though the late 1800's," he notes, "you find that the higher the weight, the lower the ERA."
Antonio Alfonseca and his six-fingered hand.
Back east in suburban Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Antonio Alfonseca is instructing some local youngsters in the finer points of fielding his position. "Those slow-rolling grounders, you want to let your little second baseman or your big first baseman get them for you," he says before agreeing to allow the kids to examine his unique hands, each of which has an extra finger. "I don't know if it's been a help to me in baseball," he says, "but it allows me to shovel food in my mouth much faster."
CONCORDIA, Illinois. The walls and the rafters of the high school gym in this small downstate town are festooned with banners representing conference, district and state championships won by the boys' sports teams, the Cougars, a symbol of pride for local residents.
Cougar Pride!
"Kids here grow up dreaming of playing football or basketball when they get to high school," says local feed and seed dealer Lloyd Knox. "It's just part of their heritage."
"That's it--let him get behind you!"
And yet Concordia, as the smallest school in the widely-dispersed Tri-County League, hasn't had a winning season in any sport besides bass fishing in over a decade. "We know we can't compete with Champaign, or Urbana, or Champaign-Urbana," Knox says. "So we tell our kids you've got to find what you're good at and stick to it. That's a good life lesson."
The Cougar Marching Band
What the Concordia Cougars excel at is being good losers, and the banners represent "sportsmanship" awards handed out by league officials to keep smaller schools from cancelling their athletic programs and concentrating on academics. "It's like in college, when you hope the dumb kids don't drop out of chemistry or whatever," says Holcomb Blasdale, volunteer commissioner for the Tri-County League. "You need somebody to keep the curve down to a reasonable level."
"A spectacular dropped pass!"
Cougar athletes are taught to go out of their way to give opponents the benefit of the doubt in any contested situation. "When a kid on the other team signals for a fair catch, he's basically running up the white flag of surrender," says head football coach Wilber Rees. "If he drops the ball, we think you ought to give him a chance to pick it up before you just pummel him."
"Have I done everything I could to prepare my kids to lose graciously today?"
This Geneva Convention approach to interscholastic athletics has won Concordia--which means "place of peace" in Latin--many fans in other towns in the region. "The people from Concordia are so nice and pleasant," says Lu Anne Diggs of Waverly, Illinois. "We just love when they come to town--it helps our kids' self-esteem to beat somebody by twenty points without breaking a sweat."
As spring competition begins, Concordia Athletic Director Dirk Powell hopes his teams can again achieve a "hat trick"--worst record and best sportsmanship in the three major sports, football, basketball and baseball. "My only regret is that we don't play hockey here," he says. "Then we'd have a grand-slam."
TAMPA, Florida. The mood in the New York Yankees' clubhouse was solemn after a 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates Thursday. "They're making cuts today," pitcher Kei Igawa told a reporter from Japan. "Many people are very nervous."
"Let's practice the glove-throwing play."
When a player was summoned to the manager's office, he knew the news wasn't likely to be good. And so when veteran Billy Crystal heard coach Tony Pena call out "Hey, Mr. Funny Man! Skip wants to see you", his teammates said nothing and avoided eye contact as Crystal made the long walk to manager Joe Girardi's office.
Billy Crystal
Crystal, a 60-year old comedian, movie star and Oscar host, had been hoping to extend his illustrious career by switching to designated hitter, a position where veterans whose fielding skills and timing have diminished can hope to hang on for a few more years until they lose their batting eye. "Henny Youngman did it," Crystal had said to reporters in front of his locker just the day before. "At the end his delivery had slowed down, but he could still knock out a joke in a clutch situation."
Girardi
"Billy, have a seat," Girardi said to the aging comic. "How's the family?" he asked, making small talk. "Fine," Crystal said, although his face bore an expression of concern that belied his word. "Well, Bill, let me cut to the chase," Girardi said after some more palaver. "We appreciate all you did for us in your single celebrity at bat, but the club has decided to move in a different direction."
Scouting report: "Like someone trying to swat a fly with a meat cleaver."
Crystal's face registered a look of dismay, then resignation. "So it's over?" he said.
"We could re-assign you to the Columbus Clippers, but if we give you an outright release, you might catch on with--I don't know--Tampa Bay or Kansas City."
Murphy: "He's got the bling, he's got the swing."
"Thanks," Crystal said, hurt but appreciative. "Just out of curiosity," the star of hit movies such as "When Harry Met Sally" asked, "who're you going with at veteran designated comedian?"
"We just picked up Eddie Murphy from Los Angeles."
"Eddie Murphy? A ex-Saturday Night Live hack who's making kiddie movies now?" Crystal had famously turned down an offer to join the regular cast of the late-night comedy program early in his career, and it paid off when he made the move to Hollywood sooner than expected.
"He's got the bling, he's got the swing," Girardi said as he picked up a pile of scouting reports. "We're looking for a more explosive sense of humor--one that will put runners in scoring position."
"What's wrong with my schtick?" Crystal said, lapsing into Borscht Belt yiddish for a comic's material.
"Bill, it's fine--but times have changed," Girardi said. "Yours is a more situational, observational humor. Did you know the Yankees were last in the AL East last year in stolen bases to Jewish mother jokes?"
"I haven't told one of those since . . . "
" . . . and that we failed to bring home fifteen runners in scoring position during Labor Day telethons by washed-up comedians? Those numbers aren't good."
Jerry Lewis: "$81 million folks. That'll buy a utility infielder, or a left-handed pinch hitter with some pop in his bat!"
Crystal was silent, and hung his head.
"How 'bout the Red Sox," Crystal asked. "They have a history of hiring comedians, like Bill Lee . . ."
Bill "Spaceman" Lee
"I think they're all set," Girardi said. "They just signed Jay Leno."
"Leno!" Crystal screamed. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Nope. He's local--from Andover, Mass."
"But he's got that big chin!"
"That's a plus. When the chin music"--baseball slang for high, inside pitches--"start's flying, he'll be a valuable asset."
"I don't get it," Crystal said.
"The way that thing sticks out, he has the highest hit-by-pitch to at-bat ratio of any major league comic."
BOSTON. Concerned that the Cleveland Indians' use of flying insects made the difference in their Division Series triumph over the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox today began preparations for the American League Championship Series by ordering four hundred pounds of mini shrimp that coaches will toss at pitchers to gird them for an expected onslaught of the bugs, known as "midges".
"Don't inhale this stuff unless you want to end up like Steve Howe."
"I thought midge was somebody my wife played bridge with," manager Terry Francona told reporters. "They threw Joba Chamberlain off his game, so they must be pretty powerful."
A midge who does not play bridge.
Midges, also known as "Canadian soldiers", are tiny flying insects that bedeviled Yankee pitchers in game 2 of the series, causing star rookie reliever Chamberlain to throw two wild pitches in the eighth inning, allowing Grady Sizemore to score the tying run.
Mini-shrimp, if that isn't redundant.
Midges are common along the shores of Lake Erie where the Indians' home field is located, but are unknown in New England. Sox officials settled on mini-shrimp as the closest approximation to the gnat-like pests that New England had to offer. "There are a lot of roaches in the student apartments around Fenway," said Sox pitching coach John Farrell, "but we couldn't find anybody willing to go in and get them."
Kucinich: "Running for President is a great way to meet bodacious women."
In the late 1970's when Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was Mayor of Cleveland, a heavily-polluted Lake Erie caught fire, causing fans to refer to the Indians' former home field as "The Mistake by the Lake". Kucinich still bristles at the implications of that nickname.
"Lake Erie is a clean-burning, natural fuel."
"The lake did not catch fire by mistake," Kucinich says. "It was by accident, and there's a big difference."
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the team with the worst record in baseball, today announced that they will dedicate their 2008 season to Mimi, the late French poodle owned by Valerie Cardinale, long-time interior decorator for Alison Price, the second wife of minority owner Thomas Gibson of Ft. Myers, Florida. Players will wear black arm bands in memory of the dog.
"Mimi was sort of a friend of mine---"
"We look for inspiration wherever we can find it," said Rays' Assistant Vice President for Promotions Andy Bannister. "Nobody really important in the Devil Rays family has died recently, which may account for the team's lackluster play."
Fred Tenney of the New York Giants, mourning the death of NL President Harry Pulliam.
Baseball players first used black armbands to express mourning in 1909, when National Leaguers donned the symbolic accessory following the suicide of League President Harry Pulliam. Since then, clubs have used the symbolic armband to motivate players, send signals to baserunners, cover holes in jerseys caused by head-first slides and express disappointment with teammates' on-base percentage.
"I want you to go out there and win one for the Gipper--our Academy Award is riding on it!"
"Death can be a bummer, but it can also inspire a team to do the little things like hitting the cut-off man or signing that extra autograph," says baseball historian Bernard Small. "The Devil Rays use of a non-human, non-employee, non-playing relative of a non-front-office investor is unique in the annals of sport, and mortuary science."
Mimi
Devil Rays' players seemed both enthused and depressed by the announcement, and said they would do their best to honor the memory of an animal who was loved by all who knew her, unless they tried to take away her "rawhide" chew.
Rawhide chew: Don't even think about yanking this out of Mimi's mouth.
B.J. Upton
"It's probably the most exciting thing to hit the clubhouse in a really long time," said center fielder B.J. Upton. "The black armband will make our uniforms look totally sick next year."
It was getting late, so I turned out the lights in the den and headed upstairs. As I walked down the hall, I thought I heard crying from the boys' room, so I stuck my head inside.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Nothin'," said Scooter, my 13 year-old.
"He's being a jerk!" said Skipper, my 10 year-old.
"You're just a big baby," Scooter snapped back at him.
"And you're a stupid doody-head," Skipper said through tears.
"What's this all about?" I asked in my most mature and concerned tone of voice. Probably about a broken Transformer.
Skipper and Scooter, in happier times.
"Scooter says the Red Sox aren't going to be the American League Wild Card team this year!" Skipper said.
"Scoots--is that true?" I asked.
"Sure it's true--so what?"
Transformer--Devastator, to be precise.
"That means they won't get a pennant," Skipper blurted out. "And they won't make the playoffs, and I won't be able to stay up late in October and watch Bud Selig pretend like he's having fun at 10 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Central time when he's freezing his butt off." He plunged his head into his pillow and started to cry.
"That does it. From now on, only teams with domes can make the playoffs."
I looked up at the wall and counted off the Red Sox Wild Card Winner pennants my boys had collected over the years--1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005. It had been so long since the Sox won the American League East--1995--they weren't old enough to remember. All they had ever experienced was the skin-of-your-teeth experience of fighting it out with all the other second-best teams in your league to win the wild card, and the chintzy memorabilia you were left with if your team didn't make it past the Division Series.
"Skipper, come on--don't take it so hard," I said. "The White Sox made it to World Series two years ago, and they weren't the wild card."
Slowly, Skipper turned his head and looked towards me. "They weren't?"
"Nope. It is entirely possible to win the World Series without winning the wild card."
"See--I told you, stunod!" Scooter yelled at his little brother.
"I am not a stunod!" Skipper screamed back.
"Wait a minute guys--what's a stunod?" I asked, hoping to calm them down a bit.
Donuts--spell it backwards.
"It's just 'donuts' spelled backwards," Scooter said.
"He's saying I'm stupid!" Skipper said, tears forming in his eyes again.
"Skipper--he's got a point," I said. "You don't have to win the Wild Card to be the World Champion--or at least that part of it that's located in the continental U.S. plus Toronto."
"You don't?"
"Well, lately it helps. A Wild Card team won the World Series in 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Back in the old days, you had to come in first in your league to get to the World Series."
"What was that like?" Scooter asked.
"Those were hard times. No matter how many beers and razor blades there were to sell, advertisers couldn't buy a thirty-second spot in the ALDS or even the ALCS. It was the World Series or nothing."
"The playoffs are fun!"
"Gosh," Skipper said with a serious tone that seemed out of place coming from someone wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas. "I guess we're really lucky, huh?"
"That's right, son. You get to crawl into school all bleary-eyed with a note from Mom instead of trying to sneak a transistor radio into Geography class to listen to when you should be learning about the People's Republic of China."
"What's that?" Scooter asked.
Sometimes I'm appalled at how little kids are learning these days. "Scooter," I said with a note of reproach in my voice. "I'm surprised at you."
"You don't know anybody from China?"
"Sorry dad."
"You should know that China is where Yao Ming is from!"
CARACAS, Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez today threatened the United States with an embargo on the export of shortstops until Venezuelan native David Concepcion, a five-time Gold Glove winner for the Cincinnati Reds' "Big Red Machine" teams of the 1970's, is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"The big medal is for Most Improved Right Fielder."
"Venezuela produces the world's most beautiful women and the best shortstops," Chavez said to a cheering crowd at the presidential palace in Caracas. "Let the Yanqui oppressors try to get by with their little David Ecksteins and Freddie Pateks."
Freddie Patek, world's shortest shortstop
On Monday Chavez took out a full-page ad in USA Today touting Concepcion's Hall of Fame candidacy and praising other Venezuelan shortstops such as Luis Aparicio and Miquel Cabrera. The socialist dictator has become increasingly eccentric over the past few years, calling for an end to presidential term limits and ordering the nation's clocks to be moved forward by a half hour. "He kept missing the Web Gems segment on SportsCenter," said Marvin Schaeffer, who covers Latin America for The New York Post.
Dave Concepcion
In addition to shortstops, Venezuela is a major exporter of petroleum, which is marketed in the United States under the "Citgo" brand. The company is perhaps best known in America for the sign in Boston's Kenmore Square that is visible to spectators in Fenway Park.
The Citgo Sign
Conspiracy theorists have speculated that Chavez uses the sign to disrupt the play of non-Venezuelan infielders such as former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and current Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who has developed "Garciaparra Syndrome", a disorder characterized by obsessive fiddling with batting gloves. Chavez has issued perfunctory denials of that charge, citing the writings of left-wing linguist Noam Chomsky as evidence that America is to blame for world poverty, teenage acne and Johnny Pesky's failure to throw out Enos Slaughter in the 1946 World Series.
"You think I'm wacked--read some Noam Chomsky."
Democratic Senator John Kerry issued a statement deploring the Bush administration's failure to maintain sufficient reserves to see America through a shortstop shortage, saying "When I was a boy growing up watching Eddie Yost play shortstop for the Red Sox, whom among us would have thought that America would ever lose its position as the birthplace of the world's greatest 'hot corner' men?"
Eddie Yost
In the 2004 presidential race Kerry identified Yost, who played for the Washington Senators, the Detroit Tigers and the Los Angeles Angels, as his favorite Red Sox player.
SAN FRANCISCO. Marine biologists have determined that giant squid caught off the coast of California in recent months have fed on discharge from Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, a sports nutrition center tied to steroid abuse among professional athletes.
"Look at the back acne on this one!"
"We performed autopsies on some of them, which is a good reason not to become a marine biologist," said Paul Wolman, of the California Oceanic Institute. "They were wearing a lot of bling and a few had eaten on-camera and print reporters who tried to interview them."
"Ohmigod--it's got Jon Miller in its mouth and is shaking him like a chew toy!"
Lifeguards report that humans have little to fear from the giant sea creatures, which can grow to a length of 13 feet in the case of females, and 10 feet in the case of males. "You should stay clear of them, and try not to fall behind in the count," said Dave Leftwich, who patrols the beach at Laguna del Vista Mar Rey, California. "Don't give them anything good to hit on the inside part of the plate."
Blue Cheer and Iron Butterfly: You had to be stoned to appreciate them.
The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, or "BALCO", is located 17 miles south of San Francisco, and its proximity to that drug-tolerant city is cited as the link between the giant squid and illegal steroid use. "These ten-foot creatures would slither into my store and ask if I had any Blue Cheer or Iron Butterfly albums," says Seth White, owner of the Hot Wax Used Record Store in San Francisco. "I would tell them to just drop their money on the counter--I didn't want to touch the serrated rings on their tentacles when I gave them their change."
"A giant squid ate your kayak? That like totally bites, man!"
More than a few of the squid are expected to be in attendance when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's home run in the days or weeks ahead. "We know Barry from way back," said one. "By comparison to us, he's really not that slimy."
NEW YORK. Barry Bonds has courted controversy in a variety of ways over the course of his career, but he underestimated the force of the reaction he's received after he called HBO announcer Bob Costas a "midget".
Eddie Gaedel and Bob Costas: No comparison.
"Costas? Please--don't make me laugh," said Rachel Wilner of the Little People of America, a group whose members include both midgets--short, normally-proportioned people--and disproportioned short persons or dwarfs. "Maybe a mental midget if you're talking about 'Fair Ball'," a book by Costas, she added with contempt.
Bonds' comment came in response to an interview between Costas and Curt Schilling in which the Red Sox pitcher said Bonds' refusal to address accusations of steroid use was tantamount to an admission of guilt. Logic-Impaired Americans, which provides support to individuals whose cognitive skills prevent them from making sense, came to Bonds' defense. "Barry has a right to confuse the message and the messenger," said James Robinson, the group's executive director. "Those two words share many of the same letters."
"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to compare you to Bob Costas."
While Eddie Gaedel--a midget sent to bat as a member of the St. Louis Browns by owner Bill Veeck--holds a hallowed place in baseball history, there has never been a midget broadcaster, and Bonds issued a press release to clarify his comment. "I did not mean, nor did I intend to suggest or imply, that Bob Costas could ever qualify as a midget. I regret any offense I have given to any actual midget."
Marvin "Bad News" Barnes
Costas began his career as play-by-play announcer for the Spirits of St. Louis, an American Basketball Association team led by Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, the 1975 ABA Rookie of the Year who once composed the following limerick about Julius Erving on the eve o####ame between the Spirits and the New York Nets.
Bad News Barnes and Dr. J.
There once was a doctor named Erving, Whose slam dunks were especially unnerving, But when Marvin gets movin', And the crowd gets to groovin', For the Doctor a hospital bed they'll be reserving.
During his college career Barnes was suspended from the Providence College Friars after beating his roommate with a tire iron. "News will be back," Barnes said at the time, "'cause his fans be demandin' it."
Spirits of St. Louis jersey
When reached for comment, Costas declined to respond to a question posed by a reporter for Gerbil Sports Network. "Ooo--Mr. On-Line Journalist," he sneered. "You started out writing about Barry Bonds, then got completely sidetracked with a stupid digression about Marvin Barnes. You have the attention span of a chipmunk," he said before pausing. "Actually, that means you're highly qualified to write a blog."
ANN ARBOR, Michigan. Gary Sheffield, the outspoken outfielder for the Detroit Tigers who transformed an upper-body tic into a powerful home-run swing, was today named Director of Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan Law School, whose program of racial preferences was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.
"No, I don't want to be your friend, you freaking half-breed."
"When it comes to making finely-calibrated distinctions on the basis of race, Gary's the man," said Evan Caminker, Dean of the University of Michigan Law School. Caminker said Sheffield would report directly to him on issues of diversity and racial purity, but Sheffield moved quickly to correct his boss, whom he characterized as a "pasty-faced nerd who sits in a liberry" all day. "Nobody tells me how to do things," Sheffield explained to reporters. "I do things the way I gotta do them, and that's it."
The Shef's Idol: Sammy "I've Gotta Be Me" Davis, Jr.
Sheffield has been in hot water recently after saying Derek Jeter, his former teammate on the Yankees, "ain't all-the-way black." Jeter's mother is white, his father is African-American, his maternal grandfather is an Aleutian Islander and his dog is a colliedoodlekeet, a mixture of a border collie, a French poodle and a parakeet.
"When you're Gary Sheffield, you're way the hell far out in left field--all the way!"
“Jeter used to come to me and basically used to tell you what (Torre) is all about, he’s a good man, he’s this, he’s that,” Sheffield said. “But like I tell Derek Jeter, ‘That’s you. It’s one thing that they treat you a certain way — you don’t feel what other people feel, 'cause you've got a brain.’ “
Those close to him say that Sheffield's prickly temper may be due to his use of anabolic steroids, whose side effects include irritability, back acne and shriveled testicles. "You can hardly blame the guy," said Joel Upham, who covered Sheffield during his years with the Yankees. "It's not easy attracting Baseball Annies when word gets around that your shoulder blades look like a fourteen year-old's face and your testicles are the size of pistachio nuts."
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin. In a testy exchange with reporters today Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that he would try to attend the game in which Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's career home run record, but could make no promises. "I do have a day job," said Selig, who is general manager of Selig Pontiac-GMC, a car and truck dealership in Milwaukee.
"Bud, there's a Mr. Bonds for you on line 2."
Selig has been criticized for allowing players such as Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire to use anabolic steroids in pursuit of greating slugging power, and sportswriters have speculated that he would avoid Bonds' record-breaking game in order to deflect attention from his role in baseball's biggest scandal since Charlie Finley put a mechanical rabbit behind home plate when he owned the Kansas City Athletics.
Kansas City's Municipal Stadium: The rabbit is underground right now.
"Mr. Selig is a very busy man," said MLB spokesperson Melinda Albricht. "On Mondays he and Mrs. Selig play bridge. Tuesday nights he has meetings at his lodge, the Loyal Order of the Bratwurst."
Tuesday night lodge meetings are held here.
Selig does not currently schedule meetings or social events on Wednesday nights, according to Albricht. "America's Got Talent has gone into Las Vegas Callbacks: Part 2, and Mr. Selig left strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed."
America's Sort-of Got Talent: "Take me out to the ballgame, oh baby!"
The Seligs generally reserve Friday night to Sunday afternoon for family get-togethers, and on Sunday nights the commissioner likes to prepare for the coming work week by re-arranging his sock drawer. "It can be very embarrassing if you wear blue socks with a brown suit to work on Monday," according to Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce President Lyle Walton. "The guys will razz you about it for weeks."
"You look goofy in them socks."
But that, a reporter points out to Albricht, leaves Thursday nights open. Would the commissioner be available if Bonds is on the threshold of history on that night?
Bowling night--not to be missed.
"I'm afraid not," she replies. "That's his bowling night."
BOSTON. This town, known for its cynical sportswriters and diehard sports fans, has always been tough on professional athletes. Ted Williams, the last man to hit .400, sarcastically referred to sports reporters who covered the Red Sox as "Knights of the Keyboard"; the terms the ink-stained wretches used to refer to Williams are not printable on a web site that does not offer parental controls.
Williams: "Well, Bob, I'm seeing the ball well these days, and I'm smelling your bad breath."
But not until the invention of the Internet have Boston's sports heroes had a weapon they could use to fight back against the men and women who, as A.J. Leibling once put it, buy ink by the barrel. And the first cyber-savvy jock to do so is Curt Schilling, hero of the 2004 World Series who pitched the Sox to victory in game 2 with a still-bleeding ligament sutured down to the outside flank of his right ankle.
Schilling's Bloody Sock
Schilling's blog, which appears at www.38pitches.com, has turned the tables on sportswriters who dump on athletes who lose balls in the sun, or miss slam dunks, or drop passes in the end zone. Schilling is a man of letters who can deconstruct an errant turn of phrase with the best of them, a skill he uses with special pleasure in picking apart the prose of his nemesis, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy.
Everett Shaughnessy
Shaughnessy was dubbed the "Curly-Headed Boyfriend" by former Sox outfielder Carl Everett, a slugging outfielder known for his skepticism about dinousaurs and the Apollo moon missions.
"Hey Carl--I'm a dinosaur, and I'm going to the moon!"
Here's what Schilling had to say about Shaughnessy's column in today's Globe.
"Hey there, just catching up. Did you see the CHB's hackneyed cliche 'Ainge has a bull's-eye on his back after last week (sic--and how I love to use that little word) moves.' Where does he get this stuff? Re-runs of Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour?"
Ted Mack: "You didn't win, but the consolation prize is a year's supply of Serutan--the laxative that is 'Natures' spelled backwards."
Schilling has set himself up as the E.B. White of sports prose, prodding scribes to push themselves in much the same fashion as sportswriters demand peak performance day after day from highly-paid athletes. "Steve Buckley couldn't change Red Smith's typewriter ribbon," Schilling noted on Monday after the Boston Herald columnist had split an infinitive in his haste to file a story from the West Coast last week. "I don't think I'm the first person to notice that he also ended a sentence with a preposition during interleague play."
E.B. White: "This isn't Charlotte's Web. Get your stinking butt off my manuscript!"
Visitors to Schilling's site say they prefer his writing to that of the many sourpuss scribes who follow the Sox around the country, their guts hanging over their belts from lack of exercise, their complexions blotchy from too much greasy airport and ballpark food.
William Bendix, as Chester A. Riley, and Curt Schilling, as himself.
"You've got to take care of yourself if you want to survive in the sportswriting game," says Schilling, who is said to be a direct descendant of William Bendix, star of the long-running 1950's television show "The Life of Riley".
Bob Ryan: Don't stand between him and the buffet.
"You don't get a body like mine overnight," Schilling said as he shook his head while watching the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan chow down on the post-game buffet in the Sox' clubhouse. "It takes years of neglect."
