8/09/2005
Beisbol, Build-a-Bars, and Flat Brim Hats
"Can you ever really need time off from doing nothing?" you ask.
I reply, "Apparently you can."
Oh..oh...oh, Trust me on this: a week's absence from writing obscene columns for one's pathetic blog can do absolute wonders for the soul. Now get yourselves ready for three minutes of reading bad jokes, worse grammar, and whimsical preaching about a bygone America.
If you are one of the eight people that have checked in during the last week to be disappointed to not find a new post, well then, I'm sorry (and, also, get a life.) But since you've missed me I figure that I should recap my time off. Basically, I've taken a week's worth of time off to watch some baseball, throw a rager of a party, and do a little vacating.
I've never claimed to be an exciting man.
___________________________________________
For starters, The Lady Friend and I went down to Busch Stadium for last Thursday's Cardinals-Marlins game. Just to get it out of the way: AJ Burnett is one hell of a thrower. If your team gets the chance to pick him up, encourage that transaction. Encourage the hell out of it.
With that said, at the game, sitting behind us, was a family from West Virginia. They came into the Lou for a five day weekend, which included four days at Busch. That's a family I can not only respect, but effing appreciate.
Sometime around the third inning, the father pointed his five year old son to a spot down the left field line, a spot that I'm sure you're all well aware of, the spot where Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run in 1998. The father was explaining how that summer went down...how exciting...how electric...that one summer was. Steroids, back then, weren't on the radar...weren't on the national consciousness whatsoever... we just didn't think about them. And for those few moments last Thursday at Busch, I wasn't thinking about steroids, either.
That's when it hit me: 25 years from now, baseball fans aren't going to care that players from 1995-2003 were using illegal drugs. They're going to look back and see hilarious one hit wonders like Brady Anderson (As far as I'm concerned baseball's version of Dexy's Midnight Runners: no talent, one big year), they'll read amazing stories about magical performances in books like Summer of '98, and they'll remember the time when they were 5 years old, sitting at the old Busch Stadium in Saint Louis on a hot August night in 2005, when their dad told them about the legendary Mark McGwire.
They'll remember steroids about as well as I remember Ron LeFlore snorting approximately 148 pounds of cocaine in 148 games with the Tigers during 1979, or that Joe Morgan spent the 1983 season wearing a butt-plug.
They're going to remember what they want to remember.
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time." - Terence Mann, Dyersville, IA. 1989.
________________________________________________
Now, I should probably inform you that, a few weeks back, my father and I built a rather kick-ass bar for my back patio. Last Friday, the roommates and I did what any group of 25 year old alcoholics would do to celebrate having a 9-foot long bar on their patio: Throw a "build-a-bar" party (If you are not familiar with this party theme, here's the basic premise: If you bring a bottle of cheap booze, not only can you get free mixed drinks, you also get to drink free keg beer. Always one helluva a winner of a party.)
I'll spare you the rather laborious task of reading about the "highlights" of the party, but I will tell you this: by the end of the night two girls were crying, another girl was puking, my roommate Matt was topless and screaming in our front yard, and one guy was pissing in my basement (and there is no bathroom in my basement...fuck...there's not even a drain.)
Now THAT'S a fucking party.
____________________________________________
The next day, The Lady Friend and I took a three hour trip east into Indiana and spent some time at my Grandparent's lake. I don't really have any jokes here. It was just a really nice time. Although, The Lady Friend did drink too much wine and fell off of thier back porch.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...she is, without a doubt, THE personification of grace.
_____________________________________________
As all of you Cardinal fans out there are already well aware of, rookie Anthony Reyes won his debut tonight. This kid can flat out pitch.
Not only am I already hoping on the bandwagon for him to be in next year's starting rotation, I'll fucking drive that damn bandwagon if I have to.
But here's the problem...when you wear your hat like this...I'm not sure what your nickname should be, but I'm leaning rather heavily towards it being Tony "The Tool" Reyes.
Some things which are distinctively American: Blues music, Chuck Norris, and Baseball hats.
As Phil Hartman's character in CB4, Virgil Robinson, once said "Any person who would defile America's pastime by wearing a baseball cap backwards... well, that's an evil that speaks for itself! "
Anthony Reyes, I'm still not sure what your baseball hat says about itself. But, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it.
I reply, "Apparently you can."
Oh..oh...oh, Trust me on this: a week's absence from writing obscene columns for one's pathetic blog can do absolute wonders for the soul. Now get yourselves ready for three minutes of reading bad jokes, worse grammar, and whimsical preaching about a bygone America.
If you are one of the eight people that have checked in during the last week to be disappointed to not find a new post, well then, I'm sorry (and, also, get a life.) But since you've missed me I figure that I should recap my time off. Basically, I've taken a week's worth of time off to watch some baseball, throw a rager of a party, and do a little vacating.
I've never claimed to be an exciting man.
___________________________________________
For starters, The Lady Friend and I went down to Busch Stadium for last Thursday's Cardinals-Marlins game. Just to get it out of the way: AJ Burnett is one hell of a thrower. If your team gets the chance to pick him up, encourage that transaction. Encourage the hell out of it.
With that said, at the game, sitting behind us, was a family from West Virginia. They came into the Lou for a five day weekend, which included four days at Busch. That's a family I can not only respect, but effing appreciate.
Sometime around the third inning, the father pointed his five year old son to a spot down the left field line, a spot that I'm sure you're all well aware of, the spot where Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run in 1998. The father was explaining how that summer went down...how exciting...how electric...that one summer was. Steroids, back then, weren't on the radar...weren't on the national consciousness whatsoever... we just didn't think about them. And for those few moments last Thursday at Busch, I wasn't thinking about steroids, either.
That's when it hit me: 25 years from now, baseball fans aren't going to care that players from 1995-2003 were using illegal drugs. They're going to look back and see hilarious one hit wonders like Brady Anderson (As far as I'm concerned baseball's version of Dexy's Midnight Runners: no talent, one big year), they'll read amazing stories about magical performances in books like Summer of '98, and they'll remember the time when they were 5 years old, sitting at the old Busch Stadium in Saint Louis on a hot August night in 2005, when their dad told them about the legendary Mark McGwire.
They'll remember steroids about as well as I remember Ron LeFlore snorting approximately 148 pounds of cocaine in 148 games with the Tigers during 1979, or that Joe Morgan spent the 1983 season wearing a butt-plug.
They're going to remember what they want to remember.
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time." - Terence Mann, Dyersville, IA. 1989.
________________________________________________
Now, I should probably inform you that, a few weeks back, my father and I built a rather kick-ass bar for my back patio. Last Friday, the roommates and I did what any group of 25 year old alcoholics would do to celebrate having a 9-foot long bar on their patio: Throw a "build-a-bar" party (If you are not familiar with this party theme, here's the basic premise: If you bring a bottle of cheap booze, not only can you get free mixed drinks, you also get to drink free keg beer. Always one helluva a winner of a party.)
I'll spare you the rather laborious task of reading about the "highlights" of the party, but I will tell you this: by the end of the night two girls were crying, another girl was puking, my roommate Matt was topless and screaming in our front yard, and one guy was pissing in my basement (and there is no bathroom in my basement...fuck...there's not even a drain.)
Now THAT'S a fucking party.
____________________________________________
The next day, The Lady Friend and I took a three hour trip east into Indiana and spent some time at my Grandparent's lake. I don't really have any jokes here. It was just a really nice time. Although, The Lady Friend did drink too much wine and fell off of thier back porch.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...she is, without a doubt, THE personification of grace.
_____________________________________________
As all of you Cardinal fans out there are already well aware of, rookie Anthony Reyes won his debut tonight. This kid can flat out pitch.
Not only am I already hoping on the bandwagon for him to be in next year's starting rotation, I'll fucking drive that damn bandwagon if I have to.
But here's the problem...when you wear your hat like this...I'm not sure what your nickname should be, but I'm leaning rather heavily towards it being Tony "The Tool" Reyes.
Some things which are distinctively American: Blues music, Chuck Norris, and Baseball hats.
As Phil Hartman's character in CB4, Virgil Robinson, once said "Any person who would defile America's pastime by wearing a baseball cap backwards... well, that's an evil that speaks for itself! "
Anthony Reyes, I'm still not sure what your baseball hat says about itself. But, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it.
