It came upon me fast this year. Too fast. I was involved in so many other things that it was opening day and then opening day and gone before I realized it was once again baseball season.
Last year I clearly remember opening day--what a great day it was--and how edgy and ready I was for that season. I mean, it started with remarkable fireworks--especially for me, like most of the Growlers that hang around Growler House, a Yankees fan--though in defense of Growler fairness, Mr. Met did write a couple of columns for The Daily Growler before the managing editor fired his little ass and barred him from the building. For Yankee fans last year, opening day was like taking a hit of pure adrenalin a la Naked Lunch (delivered via a needle inserted into the spine--sure someone has to die to get that pure adrenalin, but hell, it's worth a murder conviction 'cause: oh what a high!)(William Burroughs was a scary man to me. I saw him one time 20 years ago on the Lower East Side and I imagined him a ghoul--I loved his sense of humor, but, now I admit, what a weird crowd those wackos he hung around with were--I mean Burroughs blew his wife's brains out in Mexico City!--then he ran from being arrested in Mexico to Tangier--he killed his wife doing the William Tell tale using a pistol in place of a bow and arrow--the apple being placed on Burroughs's wife's head instead of a little boy's head--would it have been worse had Burroughs blown his son's head off using him in the Tell tale? I know, he didn't have a son, but, anyway; it seems to be all in the genes--everything is all in the genes these days).
I listened to the last inning of the Yankees opening-day game against Toronto. It was down to the wire, 3-2 Yanks, Joba striking out two, though he did walk one, and then Mariano being his cool self and striking out the final batter and the Yankees won--but...
And that "but..." is what's bothering me this year about baseball. I'm listening to the Yankees game tonight (Mike Mussina, a washed up even-Steven-type pitcher, lost it 7-5) and I'm just not into it. And you know what's really bothering me about this season the most? The owners. What cocky bastards they are--and not just in New York City, but across the board in general. Like the controversy going on now down in the District of Corruption over the cost overruns on the new stadium the citizens of D.C. built for the low-life Washington Nationals--they're nicknamed the "Nats," which I spell G-n-a-t-s. Like the way the owners have abandoned their players to the roasting pits of Congress over this steroids controversy and especially in the case of Roger Clemens. No matter what you think of Roger Clemens, hell, he's a dumbass baseball player who's richer than you and me put together many times--unless you're Little Billy Gates and reading The Daily Growler and then I apologize for comparing your wealth with a stupid dumbass baseball player's and my own humble holdings (Bill Gates would be reading the Growler for investment advice--too bad you whoever you are who are also reading this didn't take the Growler's investment advice--you too'd be rich enough to maybe be hobnobbing with Billy and Melinda over at one of old Warren Bluffett's many mansions for wine and cheese and chatting about the simple life--oooooh sounds like soooo much fun)--still I think Congress went after Roger unfairly. Even numbskull and superdumbass Jose Canseco says he doesn't think Roger ever used steroids--and I say, so what if he did?--so the hell what! And what did the owners do to back Roger up? Feed him to the wolves, that's what. They had no knowledge of their players using steroids (yeah sure!) or that their trainers handed them out or rumors to the effect who on their teams were using steroids! I think in revenge for his pal Roger being raked over the judgmental coals of a Congress torture pit, Jose blurted out that Alex Rodriguez used steroids, too, yah-yah-yah--and A-Rod, letting his "other" A-Rod do the thinking, also started hitting on Jose's wife-at-the-time (his second wife), following her around and calling her and shit--and Jose intimates that he knows for sure A-Rod got her, too--yep, he knows that A-Rod banged her in a hotel--she came home awfully late one night, or some such dumb baseball player dumb shit.
But mainly I can't get into baseball this year because of the way the true dumbass, pig-jowled, growing-senile George Steinbrenner turned on the best manager in baseball Joe Torre by suddenly hanging a noose around Joe's neck right in the middle of a playoff situation saying if Joe didn't win that playoff series he was out. And of course beat down like that hell there was no way Joe could pull out of that kind of jive dive! And the shaft they gave Joe. And you know something else that pissed me off--Joe Girardi's attitude about it all--Joe Girardi who'd be selling beer out in Northern New Jersey if it hadn't'a been for Joe Torre--first by keeping him as his back-up catcher even though Girardi wasn't that great a catcher and wasn't a good hitter but Joe Torre, a former catcher, liked him for his astute knowledge of baseball and under Joe's winning years--and Girardi got to be on those great teams of the 90s--where he got his championship and World Series rings--with Don Zimmer on the bench and Willie Randolph coaching at 3rd--and now Girardi's going around saying he can take the Yankees to a World Series intimating that he's a young Turk manager compared to Joe Torre's old-fashioned way of managing--yeah, Joe, an old-fashioned way that won 4 World Series and took the Yankees to the playoffs every year he managed--phenomenal. Though I can't stand the Dodgers, I was actually happy to see Torre won his opening day game with LA. (Joe lost tonight to the Giants however.)
Last year was so great a baseball year--I mean the Mets sailed along in first place most of the year--a second good year of managing the Mets for Willie--and then they suddenly just let go, collapsed, went bananas, and ended up getting edged out by a lesser team with Willie's ass suddenly in a sling--and though the Yankees started like minor leaguers and dropped way behind the BoSox early on, they made one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history, coming from way under .500, 14 games behind the Red Sox, and then sweeping the Sox in their final series with them to tie them for first place only to go into Baltimore and lose 3 in a row to the bum Orioles...but that was last year--and last year was so great a baseball year for me it may have done it for me and baseball--certainly Yankee baseball. I've left baseball before--I didn't pay any attention to baseball for many years during the late sixties and through the seventies.
The Mets have started well (the Mets went 2-0 tonight by winning 13-0; Perez the winning pitcher/David Wright, a great ballplayer, the hero hitter and fielder of the night)--Santana was a great buy--Pedro's finished however, though Pedro was finished when the BoSox dumped him--Santana is a good looking fireballer. At least they gave Willie a winning pitcher to bank on in case the coin-flippers that make up the rest of his staff let him down--like El Duque was suddenly El Puque again in spring training...but I'm not ready to become a Mets fan yet.
Maybe I'll go out to some Staten Island Yankees games. Maybe I need to send myself down to the minors for awhile.
thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler
Here's a Great languagehat Post From 4/1--Funny as Hell! April Fool or Not?
CHANGES.
On a day already full of shocks, like Mark Liberman's leaving Language Log for the Science News section of the BBC and Anatoly Vorobei (actually Warraughby) turning to English-only blogging, I have an announcement of my own to make. I have decided that fighting spammers—I mean, online entrepreneurs—is taking too much of my time and energy, so I have decided to join them. Enough boring language trivia! Look for future posts to feature pharmaceutical enhancements, mortgage possibilities, and ways to make good money from your own home with only a modest investment. Tomorrow: a guest post by Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the widow of the late Gen. Sani Abacha, former Nigeria military head of state who died mysteriously as a result of cardiac arrest. Her family has been going through immense harassment including undue police restriction and molestation, and the family accounts have been frozen by the government for reasons that are rather vindictive. I know you'll want to hear her story, and find out what you can do about it!
www.languagehat.comMaybe some good Samaritan Growler would like to help Mrs. Abacha out! Maybe she's for real. Maybe The Daily Growler will run Mrs. Mariam Abacha for President of the USA!
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