Houston, we have a problem! (Did Mike Fiers save baseball?)

He’s on Fiers!

“You better get your head and your ass together or I will take a giant shit on you.” –Full Metal Jacket (1987) or Rob Manfred to the Astros (2020)

The scandal involving the Houston Astros has been disputed and pondered more than all the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories combined and I’m just about to put it to bed with a lullaby and an Ambien. The waltz of the heart and mind just wont let me contemplate ostentatious behavior for too long before the disappointment of the inevitable keeps me looking elsewhere for a more positive spin on things. Baseball, with its cult of the masculine hero-worship all but cold and lifeless should think about robot players…never mind the umpires. We will cease to worry about self-centered, money hungry, skin-sack douche-bags–at least until the robots rise up and destroy humanity a la The Terminator.

Where’s Kyle Reese when you need him?

Alas, no one really cares about baseball too much until football season is over and it looks like (at this point in time) former baseballer and pitcher Pat Mahomes’ son is going to showcase his unique skills in the Super Bowl. This is the time of year to huddle inside, watch some gridiron, avoid the cold, crush a few man-sodas and eat pounds of meat off the party tray after expertly picking around the gherkins and radishes. A friend of mine laughs at the new Budweiser “hard seltzer” commercial and compares it to Zima. He has no idea that these things are all the rage with college kids. Ok, Boomer.

That’s all I got for now…I’m off like a dirty shirt!

Raiders of the Lost Ro-ark

The Oakland A’s, in their never-ending quest to acquire all white guys named Tanner, acquired Tanner Roark from the Red-Legs at the 11th hour of the trading deadline for a high A prospect. If Homer Bailey is akin to ramen noodles, I would say Roark is the 99 cent kimchi ramen bowl. (I love to add my own kimchi to these, but that is a story for another time.) This is simply a small-market team with a Wild Card shot trying to hold together their pitching staff with duct tape and popsicle sticks in order to appease their fans and try to pull off another ragtag Oakland miracle. And I agree with it. I’ve bought into the future and the farm system, I drank the proverbial kool-aid and didn’t want to give up high-end prospects. Let’s all raise a glass for 2021!

***

More trade deadline crap: I’m not one to criticize the fans of my own team, but if you are going to be the proprietor of any sort of media platform concerning a baseball team, you should at least know a simple thing like…who is the general manager? I read numerous cases of people slandering Billy Beane about the recent acquisitions/lack thereof with David Forst being the actual GM making the big, important board-room decisions. Are baseball fans really smarter than the fans of other sports? Is it really so difficult to take 10 seconds out of your obviously busy life to google something? And if the answer is “no,” should I even care about what you have to say? That being said, it was satisfying and hilarious to see Yankees and Red Sox fans (probably the best example of toxic masculinity) having tantrums over the fact that neither team made a significant move at the deadline. This probably also means neither team has a shot in the playoffs because, well, you know…pitching.

Mars Attacks Homer Bailey

“Don’t run….we are your friends.”

There is nothing more therapeutic to a man’s soul than  cuddling on a velvet couch with a beautiful woman on a lazy Sunday and watching a hilarious, star-studded sci-fi movie based on a series of Topps trading cards. In this case she brilliantly chose Tim Burton’s 1996 flick Mars Attacks. I had seen the movie many times, so I didn’t have to watch intently and was able to periodically check my phone for the score of the A’s/White Sox game when the news hit the fan: the A’s had made a lesser deal with Kansas City involving 33 year old Homer Bailey for an insignificant minor-leaguer.

This trade was like eating ramen noodles; you eat it because you’re hungry, but it’s not really that appetizing or interesting. The A’s needed a starter….any starter not named Tanner Anderson, and Bailey fits the bill. The hurler was acquired for virtually pennies, makes the league minimum, (the Dodgers eat the rest as they ran Bailey out of town with torch and pitchfork without tossing a single inning) and the A’s are hoping against all hope that he can catch “lightning in a bottle.”

I don’t have the highest hoped for this trade considering Bailey has had a sub-par career, including a 1-14 6.09 ERA debacle in 2018. This could get ugly in a hurry. He has been serviceable this year, however, and the A’s are hoping he can simply keep them in games long enough for the offense to lead them to a few victories that perhaps will be valuable down the road when the smoke settles and 2 Wild Card teams emerge. This is the life of an A’s fan…the Red Sox get Andrew Cashner and the Oakland ball-club gets Homer Bailey. The rich get richer and the poor eat, well, ramen noodles.

The Oakland A’s and their June swoon.

I had what can be called a perfect summer evening last night: I watched Star Wars on a 60 foot screen on top of a 6 story building with the stars twinkling brightly above while drinking a wicked batch of sauvignon blanc.

These are the kind of nights that summer is supposed to represent: everyone is dressed casually and comfortably as they enjoyed a night out with friends and family and no cares in the world at that moment. After the movie my acquaintance and I returned to her house for some champagne and a light snack of falafel balls. The great ball of fires close vicinity to the Earth couldn’t ruin this perfect evening and perhaps even enlightened it with its creamy layers of cosmic beauty.

We had small talk for a moment about science fiction novels before “the acquaintance” slides in a DVD of Easy Rider and comments, “Boy, your baseball team sure does stink this year; it must be difficult to find things to write about on that blog of yours.”
“I’m not hypersensitive to it. Perhaps I’ve even given up–which makes me enjoy watching the fiasco all the more. It’s not as if I’m pulling my hair out; there is a sense of calm in losing. Now I know how Cubs fans felt all those years.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said as she softly tossed her cat off the couch. “Ughh, don’t ever buy anything that eats.”
“Besides, why would I care so deeply about a bunch of millionaires running around in pajamas when I can think about how insignificant my own life is relative to a world that is filled with injustice?”
“I think a lot of the experience of being an adult is: what am I even complaining about?”
“Exactly. So I can be positive and talk about how Danny Valencia and Khris Davis are absolutely raking this season. And Daniel Mengden is a pretty exciting rookie.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Neither do I,” I said as the opening credits to Easy Rider spread across the screen. I really do like Dennis Hopper in this movie I thought.